Rating:
# Miscellaneous Challenges
Good place to start and warm up. Some challenging ones too.
## 5 points: DiscordSlam
```
I heard there's a new bout going on in some new arena. It sounded like the arena's name was "Disboard". ¯\(ツ)/¯.
Better go check it out!
Flag is in the banner of the #lobby channel
Author: Helithumper
```
Pretty simple. Join the discord.
flag: `sun{w3lcom3_t0_d1Sc0RdM4n1A!!!}`
## 75 points: Brainmeat
```
I am having a beef with someone that is so bad I cant even think! He sent me a message but I think he was having a stroke. Please decipher the message while I beat them up.
```
brainmeat.txt
```
Author: Aleccoder
```
Opening brainmeat.txt gives us:
```
4inWZsuxeh3Bc+T9NSDa6[uZ2fihfIu1CacQhzM5N-zvA7-vW-kC-6Td5Ij9M-Q---IoZUx7JtPpWv881Iy9oKVL->OFAdfyWRS+yho8Cirggjzox4EK50ekon+lrCirMqV4Pss1CQN0Q<Fjq8ozSw5S6fm4hyOu9CSOEo4cedXmXYoOKmOljN72g]fBqoBoICDHA2m90Mv>C+Hk.vHGl+hqIw2cGzuTmKcaSZE2FtlSCdgSeRmjNVAvn+RaDf.0OLi-sDnN-lEtAvnF-9KatMZpQSymrIN3Av3Jd-N-Adb8g4xnO-laG2p5yIg9EHwNsu-l.FDAies[DrVkhRifrIHcCvGaEe6SMpetN1MJPgol8IVkYqHSCdWOtVw7qrjkKKdsR8NikMiVxttOx1-oR-BN2-Ag5gKsjioK4mV2XJ8NhQT>gcvykbWocYQ9ImXJ9PG6s2cDtxO7otq+36Hts<lu]PZtPTTVvH4x6Gm5WiDhBli8kbRJqnAw52RRq4zU2c>PvuitF1XRRHOR8tGYEs6+oss.EYSak0uZfChtc[jENgpjYHaB3XlOcCHVnrPcCKiXaUl2Mf6L89-NcexcnYX13Y8Nd6p>SZsd+nZHkuWGdmOssOVz76ZwR8joBned+zZYX6YCQgCevFCQwjYr+2oHe3osonHPh0mEVx++27VRHZV22QOc6B<5xDHGMpYsOGUZsrCDbLbU]D4mX9ua>uE57MDu-AFu8O51Z7JB.54VNPvuT-2TglY3JRPU6TsL[Z0GNbeu6XFg3U-36DAeqQTYttYAmofM1nlP1kf-BlWeUuo-dNx>2eaknzMxO9kEfSMa16ODK+oV93<]dIP1J>ZDoA-AzOR3xmxvzrlHUd3-dnA8KJKppLxTe.1U46q2h3TZ0+w[v-0GJyq9Yt10Ur>0mHA+8AWK2LfoXH356Iz0zfJ3H++BxaMDnOZS<azNJXTCtm47]>N04dAJqIfaRJm8p+nVsx.HWEBh00Qjf8gg++T+QtnGWq7BQVNvXZ3FzQle4J+qEGsS47Ijm14++h6elz+BufgXQuUmJz3ebb+b.DJvTsD6BKYvWhvmlI-SBSI-GRYxiU-G-kMSqCrfTQvJoKd2TJ3DHEvUP0Y2jH3U2nLhZAcc8ZiJHxYPUb-4dI-T-1SKTETo--ZKg0brCR3zM-CjYi0sSnO-1Eh7M6RX-A5v.8cawW[gXv7NIaKnC1yeRRwc6l3m-pxXCqKZtr5QKmfgoq2-v-P9Px>YA6OYV3giwYrS+HvEkK4vDHaCf2Qni<NFM]UHMLC2>62PN-AUoIKIIlDcmdjh2NJPtivHXED3SzLH.ZadAVn2eX-o-MEyE7cFVe-4mVOJUEd-s7w-jUOQeLQStTGUj6b27GyzTqhTYiPMgT5ZV-mw8-v4ZRyhsf2GINijwlDwoSQ-z-TxIGr3-CRTF5d-Q9ruRE14lOznNG1-Lfn.5wOaVE-h-6ra-GUUnk8vDaEV1IDIG4dgnL.txAk8[DT21fQvbHqSJtOx-6za>+QfPAOrI7fzyyoOD8+H+mBL<1BY]pdy>HoY-9PMK8aWOui5H0YsOC88BwujeFlf1-cS200PxRDrgK9nkyNF.5j-PcnGnYgL[gM-FVrHzJ-EmAGatKkAbNLdthUt2IrMTAQaRufaA2agOLJN-Le>pq2jkU3oVV6PLgfdgGg90TpeFXsCiQGEgH27W2qbaQ2skTcUuDS9YjUzq+vtXjIdnCpZfbiw9YpwSlyuqaFO37fAA9rrwUZwcxU3WA6NDCa0RM<Gpe]ssi2jc>-mhBJ6ke3m3Ox7IWu-cBe0na.sr9ek[-HF3-Hfpkw-QrrDqM3FE>JeumuyAZhWYMHh+XaT<p]x2>o92-89YpSHuoBuLFePrmYs-CAHcafGVKQD-HOqj-Zk5zPKo6PL3CZ63LiOsGkthIqS5u9xE.svE+IKcHnC+YpGLc4+nX3xyINfT[rgZF1UYfzody2eQ9Bcpw-jod1m6nnPKAq9C26LIePcUR7aYq35MUIIMvxVq5yAtUsp>VYhMnBS1rV+w92PRl++4BLfsKZ8<zM0tMKp3Xc4u5xStCA]c91aqqv4qx5FlQix2vJ>e8OJeWn+DyjOt+sAqGP.+5HrwHgbqwu2giHc+kHWYoD6Ww+SSiP9t++fdl++2WvVf8ZhKUNnq+.WggTD8I+JA6BWq44WrTflnee+NsAJId9arYs2j+MP+zDbgDW+z5nUwPSsI1rkaYjN5xzYXir3qCxg0IBDP0bc.zH[TuLw4AW+fGx+RMdaybgP521TOm>9wekiDPs6ggz54-5dnws19ni-zlR4-AOqgsvP74JfCeuu<PxCk3bC5fpALUb]UcwnbOG642VrQwWrWi>1IH-lDjHkZBfJ6QaCr-wRjVXI4K.Rne4Rln-YmxbbIi[C90M7auHWhPn-n97smwSqFwVfiVS790GAJ5alFKo4quLmsbeSI3zD-4GFo>6wqvaBa+PAFeR+CeOAWUoVW87U6WNgzC+RAER35yrM2+AnDtkuf0tvU20B+RC5w564wV89b+a8VAHfTTrVGl5Aq1Tr+oRLW3CowLfbXsb4HkbA<o]GI3IDFCZrBuNFEMHFKvuI>UOOfjzwuo9e9iQ.YP1[UXY8O2ZzjAidCeR-JMmGnAPJvE>+EW+frB+D<lDsI8dVAR1JTQOTXhNT6P8krg9c7oftVm0Gm]fI2>3lv1.uRp-L0oMTINLj67ZeWyUVux-LS3JL5[xD5iBiuZtebQ-yyGaQ7LhIxhHPnw4rmRmjrRtJJ89XV9nreQoePUO--mTwl3w>Yt7dj+x802dtsA7<x6]>.btMhw4X+w[-EDFGTtiIHKXRNIFh7O8hSo909Tde74a6cv>+ly8+kSZIjcwqyF7Wxc8Saq+BfefvT6MdIjsh7AYL7nTwTX5<KpNzgREroZEMWFp3O2]ByH6XJUJUoqAOHsC0G5sqAWANgI53>xG+L3PSJKoDimc0IYP710w.ujcl+vqCjnevIeCoTetbt+LM0d8+7rGgVRLRZ+YwbYVC6j+7L79+pMHn+7lJr9mOfa0OZPpWb+9PdjCHAa39.phV5PhS564tg8+gYa2iZncPvorngR387LrW4sUps+TmXbusf0ABn+TTJz+1h2Rc9eYWn6a+du05ZC8VzhCH.LL[YbE-h>s+aw4kCIX0AJ0yHJUTzowsHxxkqbJswdy+DgCPg6S+E<R]gveenGzawAQMDgaVWfsoepR>yeP4UQY98WU1hJ5MAtVRPG0WI4VyWi+6tCjZATO+NA0.BFmbT49E+SKNx+5TM+srm+2kvcJW7OBKrZFBUsPR.yz0GQbSlx2rLV7jD+kU4lqWAiWe2uzU40S7q+m2IonY92Qijj+gNLqSMg3dzzjWXN8ujivyNWPgfil.h4V.oS8+S397MmHtOeXZ1.TXkswCsWndUo7Cv4BWntyes74RSosHKfCvt16oOtPeZsbv>rTLB-PPpR-vX8xbo[Y47-apHECWXYMsso-gZGgmhsC2nxXOpWoHeB8oD1TaEirS2ufn7tH0k1A0WPW>eJva6VKBgTUGwINdgh+BU7VE4x2JAd+N+bR4mKRWuqPrfHkLZbmF<]>L7.JneBxO
```
It looks like gibberish at first glance, but all non-alphanumeric characters consist of `>`, `<`, `[`, `]`, `+`, `-`, and `.`; combined with the title `Brainmeat`, this immediately calls to mind the esoteric programming language Brainfuck. Luckily, Brainfuck interpreters ignore all invalid characters. Copypaste the code into an online interpreter, and you get:
flag: `sun{fuck_the-brain#we!got^beef}`
## 75 points: Middle Ocean
```
I made a deal with Hulch Hogan (Hulk Hogan's brother) for a treasure map can you get the treaure for me?
Flag format is SUN{}
```
treasure_map.txt
```
Author: Aleccoder
```
Opening the file gives us this:
```
CMM72222+22
CQC52222+22
CH9J2222+22
9H9M2222+22
8PQ42222+22
9P4G2222+22
8Q572222+22
```
I didn't know what these were, so I googled it. And it turns out that these were coordinates, and Google Maps accepted them. I plotted them all on Google Maps:
Not immediately getting anything, I tried to figure out the system of coordinates that it was using. This turned out to be a red herring; it didn't matter and I came up fruitless anyway. Where the flag was truly hiding was the typical latitude-longitude coordinates that they corresponded to. In the image above, you can see the latitude and longitude of the fourth point from `treasure_map.txt`. All together:
```
83.00006, 85.00006
78.00006, 123.00006
77.00006, 52.00006
57.00006, 53.00006
45.00006, 102.00006
33.00006, 125.00006
```
Drop the `.00006` that they all share, and they suspiciously look like ascii codes. Using this site (make sure to put a 0 before two digit codes for it to work), you get the flag.
flag: `SUN{M495-f!}`
## 100 points: Big Bad
```
The Big Bad Wolf has entered the ring. He can HUFF, he can puff, but can he blow this house down?
Author: Mesaj2000
```
Attached below that is a png of a binary tree called BigBad.png:
The problem description has `HUFF` in all caps, so searching up `Huff Binary Tree` returns Huffman Encoding. You can read up on it yourself, but its actually not really required for this challenge. All you need to know is that each letter is assigned a binary string based on the path you take from the root to the respective node; the more often a character appears, the shorter the string is. Taking the left path is a `0`, taking the right is a `1`.
But we don't have any data to follow down the tree, so we have to look for that. A good tool that I installed a while ago is `stegsolve.jar`. You can get it here. Run it with `java -jar stegsolve.jar`, open up the image, and start flicking through the image planes with the arrows on the bottom. In any of the LSB planes (Red/Blue/Green Plane 0), a barcode pattern appears. Its not actually a barcode though, just binary (black = 0, white = 1).
The fastest way to extract this info for me was to just take a screen shot. It introduced some noise at the end and cut off a bit of the data at the end, but luckily it wasn't too much (oops). Each pixel was one piece of data, since it matched what I expected the data to start with (`sun{` encoded becomes `000001010010110`, which aligned with the pixels by eye). I wasn't about to do this by hand, so I wrote a python script to help me. If you don't have the Pillow library installed, now would be a good time to get it.
My code looked like this:
```
from PIL import Image
im = Image.open("data.png")
string = ''
for x in range(im.width):
pixel = im.load()[x,35] //just a random row in the middle of the image
avg = (pixel[0]+pixel[1]+pixel[3])/3 //the pixels weren't perfectly black or white
if avg > 127:
string += '1'
else:
string += '0'
string = string[2:] //removing noise from the beginning
print
print string
dict = {
'000': 's',
'010': '0',
'0010' : 'u',
'0011' : '_',
'0110' : 'd',
'0111' : '9',
'1000' : '5',
'1100' : '1',
'10101' : 'a',
'10010' : 'n',
'10011' : 'h',
'10100' : 'l',
'10110' : 'e',
'10111' : 'b',
'11011' : '}',
'11010' : '{',
'11100' : 'r',
'11101' : 'c',
'11110' : 'k',
'11111' : '3'
}
while string != '':
for x in range(3,6):
if string[:x] in dict:
print dict[string[:x]],
string = string[x:]
break
```
Unfortunately, my screenshot cut off a bit, so the while loop never terminated. But I was just missing the last brace, so I got the flag anyway. On a side note, there was a period in time where I was stuck because I forgot to add the key-value pair for 'a' into the dictionary. Anyway, my program returned the flag.
flag: `sun{sh0ulda_u5ed_br1cks_1001130519}`
