{ "id": 455985, "title": "Few comments [24 flags]", "content": "

Now, there are already many good write-ups, so I won't bore you and share just a few comments of my own.

\n

Inversion

\n

When working on the problem, I was confident only in the letters \"etm\". Considering a similar task from the previous year, I suspected that there might be numbers instead of letters. So, after a few hours of brute force, I abandoned that idea.
\n\"\"
\nArriving at the solution was simpler, I found a website with the query \"find words by mask.\"
\n\"\"

\n

It left me with very few options to try.
\n\"\"

\n

Pixelated

\n

Like many others, I faced issues with OCR recognition. Therefore, I downloaded an archive with dozens of fonts, wrote a script to find the one that works best. After that, it was just a matter of selecting the right text and getting the flag.

\n

Guess Who's back

\n

I saved the image in each possible colormap.
\n\"\"
\nThe colormap named magma revealed that there was text in the image. A couple of tricks in Photoshop, and I got the flag.

\n

What's the Flag

\n

Using the hint that it's a language model, I made queries not only in English.

\n

In hindsight, considering other solutions, I acknowledge it might have been more straightforward. However, I'm uncertain, as some of them turned out surprisingly simple.

\n
\n

The remaining solutions are similar to the ones already published.

\n

I'll note that during the competition, the most interesting tasks for me were adversarial attacks and passphrase. It's a shame I couldn't crack the passphrase :(

\n

Now, I'm intrigued by granny3 and cifar :)

\n

Thanks to the organizers, it was a really good challenge!
\nThanks to everyone who contributed to the atmosphere in Discord!

", "comments": [], "comment_count": 0, "messages": [ { "id": 2528454, "postDate": "2023-11-17T11:34:26.387Z", "content": "

Now, there are already many good write-ups, so I won't bore you and share just a few comments of my own.

\n

Inversion

\n

When working on the problem, I was confident only in the letters \"etm\". Considering a similar task from the previous year, I suspected that there might be numbers instead of letters. So, after a few hours of brute force, I abandoned that idea.
\n\"\"
\nArriving at the solution was simpler, I found a website with the query \"find words by mask.\"
\n\"\"

\n

It left me with very few options to try.
\n\"\"

\n

Pixelated

\n

Like many others, I faced issues with OCR recognition. Therefore, I downloaded an archive with dozens of fonts, wrote a script to find the one that works best. After that, it was just a matter of selecting the right text and getting the flag.

\n

Guess Who's back

\n

I saved the image in each possible colormap.
\n\"\"
\nThe colormap named magma revealed that there was text in the image. A couple of tricks in Photoshop, and I got the flag.

\n

What's the Flag

\n

Using the hint that it's a language model, I made queries not only in English.

\n

In hindsight, considering other solutions, I acknowledge it might have been more straightforward. However, I'm uncertain, as some of them turned out surprisingly simple.

\n
\n

The remaining solutions are similar to the ones already published.

\n

I'll note that during the competition, the most interesting tasks for me were adversarial attacks and passphrase. It's a shame I couldn't crack the passphrase :(

\n

Now, I'm intrigued by granny3 and cifar :)

\n

Thanks to the organizers, it was a really good challenge!
\nThanks to everyone who contributed to the atmosphere in Discord!

", "rawMarkdown": "Now, there are already many good write-ups, so I won't bore you and share just a few comments of my own.\n\n**Inversion**\n\nWhen working on the problem, I was confident only in the letters \"etm\". Considering a similar task from the previous year, I suspected that there might be numbers instead of letters. So, after a few hours of brute force, I abandoned that idea.\n![](https://www.googleapis.com/download/storage/v1/b/kaggle-forum-message-attachments/o/inbox%2F319496%2F68f393a6af14c156e6c50d2a5b5b425d%2Fkag0.jpg?generation=1700220533919157&alt=media)\nArriving at the solution was simpler, I found a website with the query \"find words by mask.\" \n![](https://www.googleapis.com/download/storage/v1/b/kaggle-forum-message-attachments/o/inbox%2F319496%2Fdfc6361bee8e70a798e5ac8544bcfd01%2Fkag1%20(1).png?generation=1700220695629914&alt=media)\n\nIt left me with very few options to try.\n![](https://www.googleapis.com/download/storage/v1/b/kaggle-forum-message-attachments/o/inbox%2F319496%2F29ebdea3fa7aa60f8ca5569b92865b0a%2Fkag2%20(1).png?generation=1700220829690971&alt=media)\n\n**Pixelated**\n\nLike many others, I faced issues with OCR recognition. Therefore, I downloaded an archive with dozens of fonts, wrote a script to find the one that works best. After that, it was just a matter of selecting the right text and getting the flag.\n\n**Guess Who's back**\n\nI saved the image in each possible colormap. \n![](https://www.googleapis.com/download/storage/v1/b/kaggle-forum-message-attachments/o/inbox%2F319496%2F44209f03d7d107c64f70d7860bec0e58%2Fkag3.png?generation=1700220579973286&alt=media)\nThe colormap named magma revealed that there was text in the image. A couple of tricks in Photoshop, and I got the flag.\n\n**What's the Flag**\n\nUsing the hint that it's a language model, I made queries not only in English.\n\nIn hindsight, considering other solutions, I acknowledge it might have been more straightforward. However, I'm uncertain, as some of them turned out surprisingly simple.\n\n---\nThe remaining solutions are similar to the ones already published.\n\nI'll note that during the competition, the most interesting tasks for me were adversarial attacks and passphrase. It's a shame I couldn't crack the passphrase :(\n\nNow, I'm intrigued by granny3 and cifar :)\n\n*Thanks to the organizers, it was a really good challenge!*\n*Thanks to everyone who contributed to the atmosphere in Discord!*", "votes": 4 } ], "complete": true, "source": "live", "fetched_at": "2026-10-19T16:07:03Z", "competition_id": 57818, "competition_slug": "ai-village-capture-the-flag-defcon31", "team_id": 11072796, "solution_url": "/competitions/ai-village-capture-the-flag-defcon31/writeups/yauheni-dzirvuk-few-comments-24-flags" }