The DMZ

8:42 AM

I won't say its morning, but hi!

Anonymous

Heh.

Anonymous

Hello.

Anonymous

I just realised I still have one more NX bypass challenge to complete.

Anonymous

Yay.

Anonymous

More hand building rop chains...

Anonymous

8:44 AM

sighs.

Do these challenges come with the course?

Anonymous

Yeah, they do.

I wonder how people who try to learn by themselves practice.

Hello.

Anonymous

I think it would be virtually impossible to learn any of this without practicing.

Anonymous

8:54 AM

It's the same with hacking in general, you cannot become a good hacker from just reading books and watching videos.

Apologies if this isn't allowed in here, just thought it was worth a try - I can't read the room description on my computer. I got this as part of a puzzle.

Anonymous

You need to interact with a vast array of different systems, setups.

Anonymous

@A.B. A puzzle?

Yes. It looks like a rip-off of the old Cicada 3301 puzzles - it's not really them, no PGP signature and the real Cicada 3301 always made a big point of having a PGP signature on every message.

Anonymous

Hmm, well... Nobody has posted anything puzzle related in here in the last week I can tell you that much.

Anonymous

8:56 AM

I'm here everyday... I've not seen any ARG related material.

Our room description is simply A serious place where infosec is discussed PS we don't do hardware/software support (srs face -.-)

Its highly inaccurate BTW

Oh, I don't mean I got the chat as part of a puzzle, I meant I got what I was just about to post as part of a puzzle. It's some kind of encrypted thing and I know very little about computer encryption, was just wondering if you could tell me what it's for.

:-)

Grr, too long to post.

Anonymous

Upload it to pastebin, I'll see...

Well, first message was this

Anonymous

@nobody haha, true :D

8:59 AM

Go ahead and post. If somebody can help, they probably will, otherwise well just move on

Which leads to this

cryptobin.co/r0w345l3

Which is Base64 for this

pastebin.com/bh4qS8ST

and that's where it lost me.

It looks as if it's meant to be run somehow, but on what I'm not sure.

Well the base64 string after "ct": is the ciphertext for something encrypted with aes256-ccm with Initialization vector 0IyeLXANJxsSYPzVJP8iBA==. I'm not sure what the ts and iter parts are for though

Anonymous

Pretty sure this has been done using sjcl.

Anonymous

You can find a lot of questions about sjcl on StackOverflow.

Anonymous

9:04 AM

Here... stackoverflow.com/questions/13563859/…

Right

So now you just have to guess/find the password

Thanks, both of you! Off to StackOverflow I go.

Anonymous

I'm going to assume there is an IV re-use problem here, or something along those lines.

Oh wait this is a crypto puzzle. I thought it was the sort of puzzle you found on puzzling.se :)

Anonymous

Seems like an ARG with some crypto involved.

9:10 AM

What's an ARG?

Anonymous

Alternate Reality Game.

Anonymous

Alternate reality game

An alternate reality game (ARG) is an interactive networked narrative that uses the real world as a platform and employs transmedia storytelling to deliver a story that may be altered by players' ideas or actions. The form is defined by intense player involvement with a story that takes place in real time and evolves according to players' responses. Subsequently, it is shaped by characters that are actively controlled by the game's designers, as opposed to being controlled by an AI as in a computer or console video game. Players interact directly with characters in the game, solve plot-bas...

Anonymous

Typically how these online puzzles are defined now.

Anonymous

Since they place clues in the real world, on websites, using games, videos, pictures, etc.

interesting, but also boring

Anonymous

9:12 AM

I think puzzles are pretty cool but these days a lot of ARGs are very cringe.

I think puzzles are pretty hard. I don't remember ever solving a real puzzle

Anonymous

I used to do ARGs when I was like 14 or 15, I guess. There's a bunch of them laying around the internet some of which are really well put together others are just... Nonsense.

Hence why I find them boring ;)

Anonymous

Heh.

Anonymous

Puzzles are hard, but that's the fun!

Anonymous

9:14 AM

I'm a masochist, I love being stuck...

Hard things are fun if you ever manage to solve them. Not if you can't

Anonymous

Hahahahahha.

Anonymous

I guess that is certainly true.

Anonymous

I am yet to find something I cannot solve though, even if it takes me years..

@J-- Looks like you need to study quantum physics.

Anonymous

9:17 AM

@nobody Hahahahahhahahahah :D

Anonymous

No, that is something I could never understand.

Anonymous

Contrary to popular belief I am an idiot. Well, I know things about infosec - but I barely even finished school.

I'm not sure if anyone can

Anonymous

I couldn't even tell you all the planets.

Anonymous

I don't know them.

Anonymous

9:18 AM

I don't know a lot outside of infosec.

@J-- Well I am an obvious idiot :(

Anonymous

Heh, I doubt that :)

Anonymous

Man, I can't wait to start these ASLR bypass challenges.

Conor Mancone

9:40 AM

@nobody I'm with nobody. If you're the master of solving puzzles you should try to figure out some outstanding questions in physics! There are plenty that can get you a Nobel prize, and what's the difference really between an unsolved physics questions and a puzzle?

@ThoriumBR so you're moving out, right?

10:28 AM

@forest I'm actually considering writing the script for OWASP-nee :D

@J-- The problem with a lot of puzzles is that the solution makes no sense, even after knowing what it is

Have you ever played 100 Doors? You know exactly what kind of BS I am talking about here

Anonymous

12:22 PM

@MechMK1 Heh, I guess that's true :D

Anonymous

No, never played that.

Anonymous

What is it?

@J-- It's a phone game. You have one screen and one door in front of you. The goal is to open the door.

The first one is simple, you just tap the door, it opens

Anonymous

Phone game? I'm already turned off.

Then in the next, you lift a potted plant, find a key under it, it opens the door, etc...

But as the puzzles progress, they become batshit insane

Anonymous

12:26 PM

Heh.

I mean, some puzzles, when you see the solution, you're like "Ohh...ah yeah, now I see it"

For example in Submachine 2, there is a point where you have to enter a 5 digit code into a machine

And if you inspect the machine, you find e = mc² etched into it

And far far away, in a different section in the game, you find m = ____ etched into a lamp

And somewhere else, c = _____ etched into a brick

So once you realize you have to find the two numbers and calculate mcc, then enter the result into the 5-digit machine, it makes sense

Anonymous

wtf lol

Submachine is a classic point-and-click adventure

Fire Quacker

12:43 PM

@ConorMancone I used to think that because I could solve puzzle books that maybe I could solve one of the Millennium Prize Puzzles. Turns out those unsolved questions are like really really hard

Conor Mancone

1:16 PM

@FireQuacker If I can solve puzzles then why can't I solve an np-hard problem?

Fire Quacker

I looked into P versus NP once. Turns out most of the research is people finding ways you can't solve it. Like, okay can't do it this way, that way, or that way... guess I'm done then.

I solved a sudoku once so I'm pretty confident I'll be able to solve chess

Anonymous

You know what I hate?

Anonymous

People who fucking quit.

Anonymous

People that quit genuinely baffle me.

Anonymous

1:22 PM

Why would you spend weeks and months investing yourself into something just to give up?

Anonymous

And then expect someone (me) to have sympathy for you?

Fire Quacker

For most puzzles, the puzzle maker has a way they expect you to solve it, so all you have to do is find that path and stay on it. For physics/mathematical unsolved questions... nobody knows if there is a solution, let alone a path

Anonymous

This is why I don't like people.

Anonymous

Don't come to me looking for acceptance of you giving up.

Anonymous

If you were content with giving up you wouldn't want acceptance of the action or sympathy for it.

Anonymous

1:24 PM

/rant over.

1:35 PM

No worries, I'm not ragequitting yet :D

Anonymous

Heh :D

It depends why they quit tho

Anonymous

It just annoys me because... I've never quit anything. I've wanted to quit many times in my life, I've attempted to quit my actual life multiple times, that doesn't even factor just tasks, or whatever.

Anonymous

So when someone comes to me and bitches about quitting and wanting my acceptance.

Anonymous

I just have no time for that.

1:37 PM

I've no time for whingers

Anonymous

Quit, you can. But don't tell me and expect me to be like "oh its okay man!"

yah

funny thing is, acceptance comes from inside

Anonymous

You quit because you're too much of a pussy to try and achieve anything that takes more than the 5 year old of a child.

if you're whining to me about quitting, it's because you don't accept that you did it yourself

Anonymous

SO don't expect me to be like "oh yeah good job!"

Anonymous

1:38 PM

I never quit. I get very upset, but I never quit.

Anonymous

ANd if I did, I wouildn't expect anyone to go "its okay"

Anonymous

Its not okay.

Anonymous

@djsmiley2kStaysInside EXACTLY!

See, sometimes we can agree :D

Anonymous

I quit every fuckin' day.

1:39 PM

I mean, I quit college, and 6th form

Anonymous

But you know what? I always keep trying.

Anonymous

I always come back.

but, I did it because I'd chosen wrong.

Anonymous

Almost every single day, I quit something.

Anonymous

Sometimes I quit things every hour.

1:40 PM

I don't quit things I won't accept myself quitting

Anonymous

I think its really important in life to get back up.

actually, that's a lie

i quit learning programming, so many times

Anonymous

Well, I think there's a difference been quitting and quitting you know?

Anonymous

You can quit something and come back, like a person who wants to try.

Anonymous

Or you can quit and give up.

Anonymous

1:41 PM

And the second one is only okay if you're not gonna expect me to have sympathy for it.

Anonymous

I do the first one almost daily, for sure. But I always try again.

Anonymous

I think that is a value which most people have lost in recent years. But its really important to me.

Anonymous

It comes from bad parenting too.

Anonymous

Parents teach their kids its okay to give up these days, it's not.

J: I fucking hate people who quit!
Me, pondering about my heroin addiction: No, he's right!

Anonymous

1:43 PM

HAHHAHAHAHAHA

The best thing I've ever seen is those "motivational quotes", put under people drinking alcohol

"Crying is okay, throwing up is okay - quitting is not okay."

2

Anonymous

hahahahaha :D

Anonymous

Maybe I'm wrong, but from my experience, a lot of people I know, they are the kinda' people who quit and they never want to get back up.

Anonymous

They don't feel sorry for themselves for a day, they feel sorry for themselves for 18 months.

Anonymous

"oh i quit this 17 months ago so i cant start this new thing yet"

1:46 PM

I'm basically just trying to get through life at this point

Anonymous

this might be one of my most right leaning viewpoints i have

Anonymous

perhaps my only one...

Anonymous

if you can even call it that.

I have a feeling if I ever met J-- in real life, he would hate me

Anonymous

It depends if you'd expect me to have sympathy for you or not :)

Anonymous

1:47 PM

I should say; it's absolutely nothing personal. If you wanna quit, go right ahead. I just don't often have any sympathy for anyone because I think a lot of people bring shit on themselves and then expect me to care. And if I can navigate life, most others can to. People who say: "i cant find waht i enjoy" or shit like this, they often are not looking hard enough.

I hate sympathy from others in most things

Anonymous

You'll be fine then :)

Anonymous

And that concludes any right leaning viewpoints I have...

Anonymous

Other than that one, I'm a communist through and through :D

@MechMK1 Sodoku counts as a puzzle?

Because I have solved the easy ones

1:52 PM

Sudoku (数独, sūdoku, digit-single) (/suːˈdoʊkuː/, /-ˈdɒk-/, /sə-/, originally called Number Place)[1] is a logic-based,[2][3] combinatorial[4] number-placement puzzle.

Yay! TIL I can solve some puzzles

Anonymous

@MechMK1 I just thought of something.

Anonymous

THis picture reminded me of the time I had 12 tequila shots back-back

Anonymous

and that incident still haunts me to this day..

Anonymous

i was paralytic for about 9 hours or more.

Anonymous

1:55 PM

i could barely even open my eyes

Anonymous

and if you wonder why i did that: i cannot disclose it.

A. Hersean

Sometimes the best choice is to quit. For example, if you are on a ship (or in a company) bound to sink, it's often better to quit early (and be able to plan the exit) than when it's too late because the ship sank and you're left without a lifeboat or a direction to swim forward to.

Anonymous

^ hahahaha

Anonymous

Yeah good point :D

2:09 PM

Reminds me of when I was on a lan

And someone put a bottle of Cpt. Morgan next to me

So I just kept drinking

Until eventually, I was really fucking drunk

And we were playing CS:S

Rory Alsop

that happens

And I was still dominating with the AWP

God, that was hilarious

LAN was over when someone spilled a beer over the router :D

And my drunk ass had the legendary idea of tumbling home with my laptop instead of sleeping there or calling someone

So at like 3 in the morning, I was completely shitfaced and stumbled through the city, towards my home

i didn't even take public transit or such, because I'm an idiot

So it was like 5 or such when I finally came home, my mom was like "The fuck are you doing here?!"

So I explained. Of course, she immediately noticed I was drunk.

Anonymous

^ haha :D

I said I walked all the way from my friend here, since the router died when someone spilled a beer on it

To this day, I am puzzled how nobody robbed me

Anonymous

Luckily, I was with a friend, the problem is that I ended up falling asleep in the boot of a car instead of in my hotel room.

2:14 PM

But to this day I remember how fucking good I was with the AWP

Journeyman Geek

@MechMK1 probably scared them off :D

They were scared of getting quickscoped

:D

Anonymous

^ hah :D

3:14 PM

I once sneezed, got a head shot through 2 doors on Aztec, with the awp

on the guy about to plant the bomb.

I should of just quit life right there

was never going to exceed that

Yup, doesn't get better than that

ThoriumBR

3:40 PM

@djsmiley2kStaysInside yep... I went to see a house this morning, I hope we can get it

@MechMK1 +1 Just for the ASCII art, didn't even bother to read your answer

6:42 PM

@ThoriumBR good luck

ThoriumBR

6:56 PM

@djsmiley2kStaysInside I will end up buying a house... we went to see the location, because it's still not built