CTF-Writeups

Here I publish my writeups for CTF challenges (mostly Crypto and Programming)

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Baby Encoder

Here is the challenge code and Description

I encoded the flag with my own encoder. I'm sure you can decode it because my encoder is just a baby encoder!
from Crypto.Util.number import bytes_to_long

def displace(a, base):
    res = []
    for i in range(base):
        if base + i >= len(a):
            for j in range(base - 1, i - 1, -1):
                res.append(a[j])
            return res
        res.append(a[base + i])
        res.append(a[i])
    for j in range(len(a) - 1, 2 * base - 1, -1):
        res.append(a[j])
    return res

def flag_encoder(flag):
    encoded_flag = []
    n = len(flag)
    f = [ord(ff) for ff in flag]
	
    for i in range(n):
        encoded_flag.append(ord(flag[i]) ^ ord(flag[i - 1]))
		
    for i in range(n):
        encoded_flag[i] ^= encoded_flag[n - i - 1]
		
    a = []
    for i in range(0, n, 3):
        a.append(encoded_flag[i] + encoded_flag[i + 1])
        a.append(encoded_flag[i + 1] + encoded_flag[i + 2])
        a.append(encoded_flag[i + 2] + encoded_flag[i])
    encoded_flag = a
    for i in range(1, n):
        if i % 6 == 0:
            encoded_flag = displace(encoded_flag, i)
            
    encoded_flag = ''.join(chr(encoded_flag[i]) for i in range(n))
    return encoded_flag


with open('/home/kourosh/CTF/TMU/crypto/BabyEncoder/flag', 'rb') as f:
    flag = f.read().decode('UTF-8')
    print(str(bytes_to_long(flag_encoder(flag).encode())))

Solution

This challenge really explode my mind :’)
It has 4 custom encoding parts which are like below

step 1

It xor every byte of the flag with it’s previous byte

encoded_flag = []
n = len(flag)
f = [ord(ff) for ff in flag]
for i in range(n):
	encoded_flag.append(ord(flag[i]) ^ ord(flag[i - 1]))

to reverse this step I wrote this code

def decode3(data):

    last = ord('}')
    size = len(data)
    new1 = []

    for i in range(size-1, -1, -1):

        last = last ^ data[i]
        new1.append(last)
    
    new1 = reverse(new1)
    new2 = []
    for i in range(size):
        new2.append(new1[(i+1)%size])

    return new2

step 2

This step xor every byte of the previous steps output with its mirror bytes (0 with n-1)(1 with n-2) and …

for i in range(n):
	encoded_flag[i] ^= encoded_flag[n - i - 1]

To reverse this step I wrote this code

def decode2(data):

	size = len(data)
	for i in range(size-1, -1, -1):
		data[i] ^= data[size - i - 1]

	return(data)

step 3

This step seperate previous steps output into 3 blocks and sum each block with it’s next block

a = []
for i in range(0, n, 3):
	a.append(encoded_flag[i] + encoded_flag[i + 1])
	a.append(encoded_flag[i + 1] + encoded_flag[i + 2])
	a.append(encoded_flag[i + 2] + encoded_flag[i])
encoded_flag = a

And here is the reversed code to recover

def decode1(data):

    size = len(data)
    new = []

    for i in range(0, size, 3):
        a0 = (data[i] - data[i+1] + data[i+2]) // 2
        a1 = (data[i+1] - data[i+2] + data[i]) // 2
        a2 = (data[i+2] - data[i] + data[i+1]) // 2

        new.append(a0)
        new.append(a1)
        new.append(a2)
        
    return(new)

step 4

Here is the code

def displace(a, base):
    res = []
    for i in range(base):
        if base + i >= len(a):
            for j in range(base - 1, i - 1, -1):
                res.append(a[j])
            return res
        res.append(a[base + i])
        res.append(a[i])
    for j in range(len(a) - 1, 2 * base - 1, -1):
        res.append(a[j])
    return res

for i in range(1, n):
	if i % 6 == 0:
		encoded_flag = displace(encoded_flag, i)

Actually I didn’t realize what this function really does (LOL) because I had limited time to put on it to understand
But the thing I know is that it just changes bytes positions without any change in bytes values.
As I saw in previous CTFs These functions usually reaches the same state if we repeat them
So I used the same function with try and error numbers to find exact iteration number

def displace(a, base):
    res = []
    for i in range(base):
        if base + i >= len(a):
            for j in range(base - 1, i - 1, -1):
                res.append(a[j])
            return res
        res.append(a[base + i])
        res.append(a[i])
    for j in range(len(a) - 1, 2 * base - 1, -1):
        res.append(a[j])
    return res
	
test = [ord(f) for f in long_to_bytes(28946494946812141829547706026065914605092406854105997612241563383442514740934913838546119691331952671988567947306226900850151388621540356510466883510328793101483278519506803779932615196763052658252298923048223762802716830885754352726914690907223838594044069643833511017514637891042919056).decode()]

for i in range(1, 30):
    test = displace(test, 72)
    
for i in range(1, 310):
    test = displace(test, 66)

for i in range(1, 4290):
    test = displace(test, 60)

for i in range(1, 2590):
    test = displace(test, 54)

for i in range(1, 37128):
    test = displace(test, 48)

for i in range(1, 168):
    test = displace(test, 42)

for i in range(1, 18):
    test = displace(test, 36)

for i in range(1, 60):
    test = displace(test, 30)

for i in range(1, 42):
    test = displace(test, 24)

for i in range(1, 36):
    test = displace(test, 18)

for i in range(1, 20):
    test = displace(test, 12)

for i in range(1, 12):
    test = displace(test, 6)

Because this function has been called several times with different bases(6,12,18,..,72). so we should repeat it with different bases each base has different iteration number

So here is the final overall decoding process

from Crypto.Util.number import long_to_bytes

def displace(a, base):
    res = []
    for i in range(base):
        if base + i >= len(a):
            for j in range(base - 1, i - 1, -1):
                res.append(a[j])
            return res
        res.append(a[base + i])
        res.append(a[i])
    for j in range(len(a) - 1, 2 * base - 1, -1):
        res.append(a[j])
    return res


def reverse(lst):
    return [ele for ele in reversed(lst)]


def decode1(data):

    size = len(data)
    new = []

    for i in range(0, size, 3):
        a0 = (data[i] - data[i+1] + data[i+2]) // 2
        a1 = (data[i+1] - data[i+2] + data[i]) // 2
        a2 = (data[i+2] - data[i] + data[i+1]) // 2

        new.append(a0)
        new.append(a1)
        new.append(a2)
        
    return(new)

def decode2(data):

    size = len(data)
    for i in range(size-1, -1, -1):
        data[i] ^= data[size - i - 1]
 
    return(data)

def decode3(data):

    first = ord('}')
    size = len(data)
    new1 = []

    for i in range(size-1, -1, -1):

        first = first ^ data[i]
        new1.append(first)
    
    new1 = reverse(new1)
    new2 = []
    for i in range(size):
        new2.append(new1[(i+1)%size])

    return new2


test = [ord(f) for f in long_to_bytes(28946494946812141829547706026065914605092406854105997612241563383442514740934913838546119691331952671988567947306226900850151388621540356510466883510328793101483278519506803779932615196763052658252298923048223762802716830885754352726914690907223838594044069643833511017514637891042919056).decode()]

flags = True

for i in range(1, 30):
    test = displace(test, 72)
    
for i in range(1, 310):
    test = displace(test, 66)

for i in range(1, 4290):
    test = displace(test, 60)

for i in range(1, 2590):
    test = displace(test, 54)

for i in range(1, 37128):
    test = displace(test, 48)

for i in range(1, 168):
    test = displace(test, 42)

for i in range(1, 18):
    test = displace(test, 36)

for i in range(1, 60):
    test = displace(test, 30)

for i in range(1, 42):
    test = displace(test, 24)

for i in range(1, 36):
    test = displace(test, 18)

for i in range(1, 20):
    test = displace(test, 12)

for i in range(1, 12):
    test = displace(test, 6)

print(test)

size = len(test)

test1 = decode1(test)
print(test1)

test2 = decode2(test1)
print(test2)

test3 = decode3(test2)
print(test3)

flag = ''.join(chr(test3[i]) for i in range(size))
print(flag)

Here is the output and the flag

[128, 45, 131, 170, 99, 103, 183, 126, 115, 88, 91, 3, 63, 137, 92, 148, 94, 68, 162, 82, 84, 148, 142, 184, 130, 141, 111, 161, 227, 166, 105, 76, 107, 169, 122, 171, 68, 145, 91, 6, 111, 105, 214, 213, 213, 153, 144, 143, 115, 195, 134, 111, 101, 198, 155, 110, 53, 215, 193, 198, 180, 169, 179, 96, 106, 176, 234, 199, 181, 163, 136, 149, 41, 45, 40, 49, 66, 65]
[107, 21, 24, 87, 83, 16, 86, 97, 29, 0, 88, 3, 9, 54, 83, 61, 87, 7, 82, 80, 2, 95, 53, 89, 50, 80, 61, 50, 111, 116, 68, 37, 39, 109, 60, 62, 7, 61, 84, 0, 6, 105, 107, 107, 106, 76, 77, 67, 27, 88, 107, 104, 7, 94, 49, 106, 4, 110, 105, 88, 95, 85, 84, 83, 13, 93, 108, 126, 73, 88, 75, 61, 18, 23, 22, 24, 25, 41]
[41, 25, 24, 22, 23, 18, 61, 75, 88, 73, 126, 108, 93, 13, 83, 84, 85, 95, 88, 105, 110, 4, 106, 49, 94, 7, 104, 107, 88, 27, 67, 77, 76, 106, 107, 107, 105, 6, 0, 84, 59, 110, 85, 87, 7, 107, 104, 7, 111, 55, 89, 85, 87, 108, 104, 95, 91, 108, 57, 10, 88, 2, 105, 0, 59, 84, 111, 38, 73, 69, 42, 107, 2, 68, 65, 0, 12, 66]
[84, 77, 85, 67, 84, 70, 123, 48, 104, 33, 95, 51, 110, 99, 48, 100, 49, 110, 54, 95, 49, 53, 95, 110, 48, 55, 95, 52, 108, 119, 52, 121, 53, 95, 52, 95, 54, 48, 48, 100, 95, 49, 100, 51, 52, 95, 55, 48, 95, 104, 49, 100, 51, 95, 55, 104, 51, 95, 102, 108, 52, 54, 95, 95, 100, 48, 95, 121, 48, 117, 95, 52, 54, 114, 51, 51, 63, 125]
TMUCTF{0h!_3nc0d1n6_15_n07_4lw4y5_4_600d_1d34_70_h1d3_7h3_fl46__d0_y0u_46r33?}
Flag : TMUCTF{0h!_3nc0d1n6_15_n07_4lw4y5_4_600d_1d34_70_h1d3_7h3_fl46__d0_y0u_46r33?}

solution code

KouroshRZ for AbyssalCruelty