**WolvCTF 2024 - WOLPHV III: p1nesh4dow48**
> Category: OSINT
>
> Description: Locate p1nesh4dow48's home coordinates and submit them as wctf{x.xxx,x.xxx} rou[n]ded
>For example, if the location was the BBB at the Unviersity of Michigan the flag would be wctf{42.293,-83.717}
>You have 10 tries to get the location. If you are sure you have location but the flag does not work, make a ticket
>NOTE: Wolphv's twitter/X account and https://wolphv.chal.wolvsec.org/ are out of scope for all these challenges. Any flags found from these are not a part of these challenges.

Background: In WOLPHVII, we found a discord link to the WOLPHV server by searching up a tab that was left in one of their Facebook advertisements. In the server, p1nesh4dow48 shares a picture of his apartment to his server.


Approach: Since this CTF is hosted at the University of Michigan (and WOLPHV is based in Michigan). I assumed that the apartment was going to be somewhere in Michigan. In the photo we see "PINE RIDGE VISITOR PARKING ONLY", which would mean that the apartment's name is probably Pine Ridge. I searched up Pine Ridge apartments on Google Maps and started seaching around Ann Arbor. In hindsight, this was a mistake and cost me a lot of valuable time. I should have extended the search area to the entire state rather than just Southeastern and Southwestern Michigan.


None of the apartments with pins had the same features that the apartment in the photo had. Pine Ridge Estates in Ann Arbor only had condominums and all the ones in the Detroit Metro were 1-3 stories tall, not tall like the buildings in the photo. I decided to expand my search to other parts of the state. There came up a Pine Ridge Apartments in Grand Rapids, which had similar deficiencies to the previous photos. Running out of options, I decided to search up Pine Ridge Apartments on Google Images.


There was an article from upmatters.com; a news website for the Upper Peninsula, about a Pine Ridge apartment building being set on fire that looked a lot like the photo from the CTF. The article said that the apartments were in Marquette, so I searched up "Pine Ridge Apartments Marquette" and looked at Google Street View. After taking a "walk down the block", I found the location where the photo was taken.


One lesson I learned is to try to limit Google's location search influence because that might be limiting your search.

Flag: wctf{46.546,-87.389}

-Remark: we were the 3rd team overall and 1st UMich based team to capture this flag, pictured below (disc0dancers).