Phenominal-Photo
Forensics/Steganography
Simon was spotted dwelling under the clock-tower yet again, this time taking pictures. He seems to have captured a strange object in the far far distance going left, right, up, and down seemingly lost or out of control. There is a strange aura radiating from the photo, pulsations even, like an SOS. Can you figure out this strange phenomenon??
Author: WillyMcX
Given a single image, I tried using binwalk to find hidden files in the image but there was nothing:
$ binwalk boo.jpg
DECIMAL HEXADECIMAL DESCRIPTION
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
0 0x0 JPEG image data, JFIF standard 1.01
So, I tried using steganography to find the hidden files inside the image, and was given a zip file.
$ steghide extract -sf boo.jpg
Enter passphrase:
wrote extracted data to "Ship#1.zip".
Inside the zip there was gps.zip
and Map.txt
. The zip file was locked with a password, and this time I couldn't brute force it using john. Looking into the plaintext file, oh my god
βββΏ: β°βββ, ββΏ, β
βββ, β°βββ, β
βββ, βββββ, βββββ, β
βββ, β°βββ, ββΏ, β°βββ, βββββ, ββΏ
ββββββ
ββ ββββ βββ ββΏβ ββ β β°ββββ°β βββββ¬, ββ βββ°β¬ βββββ βββ βββββ β°βββββ ββ ββββ β
ββββββββ ββ ββββ ββ ββ (ββββΏββ
ββββββ¬ ββββββββββ)
After some searching with the help of a friend I discovered the existence of an Alien Language translator to decode this message:

Using LUDLDRRDLULRU
to open the zip, I was given another message to decode, and with the given message, the flag was found!
$ cat myrequest.txt
ββββ{βββ°βΏ_ββ_ββββ
_βββ_βΏβ°ββββ_β0β}

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