Panki's Challenge

Panki

BOFH
Messages
13,104
Hey guys!

So I decided to make a little "challenge" for all my tech-savvy TMS friends.
I hope atleast someone here is a bit into cryptography and tinkering.


EDIT: Xenforo seems to fuck this up. Therefore, I've placed the message on pastebin:

Trust me, there's more than meets the eye.


If you manage to find and decrypt the message, you'll find a Steam key which should redeem Supreme Commander 2!

Good luck! Once you redeem the key, please respond here.
If it should prove too hard, I might help with tips.
 
Last edited:
Hmmm.. interesting.

f)YY@�g#���9ؠK�阶lW3�7*B4fdvI�p��0@�X
�5,�a��Ԧ�7�F�

q�rݳ_�&�Q�.O~бT�i���}�-j���ϹG�w=��GpN7

This is gonna take a while...
We don't get an encryption key? :biggrin:

Maybe this tool might prove useful?
https://cryptii.com/enigma-machine
 
Honestly I'm such a dummy with stuff like this but I found this.

b68196e9ec.png
 
Got it!
%zwj; and ​ are both HTML zero width joiner characters... But the trick is to convert them to binary: %zwj; is 0, and ​ is 1. The decoded message is:
Congratulations! The key is ZDTZ9-0FCVE-2MGN2

Thanks for the game, Panki!


I'll think of one next, and will try to make it a bit harder!
 
Got it!
%zwj; and ​ are both HTML zero width joiner characters... But the trick is to convert them to binary: %zwj; is 0, and ​ is 1. The decoded message is:
Congratulations! The key is ZDTZ9-0FCVE-2MGN2

Thanks for the game, Panki!


I'll think of one next, and will try to make it a bit harder!

Well done mate! Never played the game so I can't say if it's any good or not.
 
It was a good one alright. Converting the binary to the zwj tokens was a great move.
 
To give credit where credit is due, I was heavily inspired by this article I found a few months ago:
 
Still, a pretty good method if people don't know about the article :) I've got some ideas, just you wait... (seriously, I might take till Saturday, when it's less hot...)
 
So uhm how did you find out the HTML zero width chars were there in the first place?
 
Well, Mauri did get that part before me...

I've developed my own puzzle (thank fuck for the airco at work, I could actually think), anyone have some suggestions for games as prizes?
EDIT: Alright, apparently I'm a noob, and I just found out you can't get Steam Keys directly from the store. Since I'm lazy, I'm just gonna gift the winner the game directly through Steam. I'll modify the puzzle to contain a certain keyword, the first one to post that keyword will be the winner!
 
Last edited:
Well, Mauri did get that part before me...

I've developed my own puzzle (thank fuck for the airco at work, I could actually think), anyone have some suggestions for games as prizes?
EDIT: Alright, apparently I'm a noob, and I just found out you can't get Steam Keys directly from the store. Since I'm lazy, I'm just gonna gift the winner the game directly through Steam. I'll modify the puzzle to contain a certain keyword, the first one to post that keyword will be the winner!
Let's go! (I might reply tomorrow at the earliest)
 
Back
Top Bottom