[CRYPTO] Walzer

We gather some ideas about this challenge.

I tried a lot of BASE editing, shuffling and fixing but any help… I dont know whats “Walzer” - in german its name of dance with a lot of rotations :smiley:

Of course we did a lot of researches related to waltz dance rotations.

But why should we mix German word with English if, according to HTB profile, the author is from Italy ? The hipothesis that Walzer is the name looks more logical.

https://dblp.org/pers/hd/w/Walzer:Stefan could be smth related in there…

I personally was looking at this track instead : https://www.sherpany.com/en/insights-resources/2018/08/21/weak-tls-encryption-wide-spread-risk/

This went from 40pts to 70pts after no one solved it for a day. So I’m hoping that once we learn what this Walzer thing is it shouldn’t be too hard to solve.

I think it’s about time for a creator hint?

I talked with the admins and I’ll release a hint at 19:00 UTC (more or less), if no one solve it in the meanwhile. See you later!

I have to admit that I created this challenge with a precise scope: showing how information asymmetry deeply impacts our ability to give an answer to or solve problems.

Information asymmetry occurs when one party has more or better information than the other. This is quite a typical situation with our challenges and boxes: makers (think that they) know everything and players don’t.

There are may facets that we should consider when dealing with information asymmetry. The first one is about the domain of discussion. When the domain is uncertain (or misunderstood), we don’t actually know where to focus on.

So, here you are some clarifications on the “domain of discussion” of this “Easy cryptography made harder in Walzer style”:

First, “easy cryptography” is literally what the general consensus consider “easy” or, if you prefer, “basic”. And remember, “cryptography” is generally an uncountable name.

Second, Walzer refers to the dance. I choose the German word because it originated in Germany (Walzer (Tanz) – Wikipedia). If you read the English version of Wikipedia you can find:

The waltz (from German Walzer [ˈvalt͡sɐ̯]) is a ballroom and folk dance, normally in triple time, performed primarily in closed position.

Walzer

LOL ?. Now I know at least that all my guessings were correctly based on the dance fact. Basically: let’s continue guessing ?

Type your comment> @v1p3r0u5 said:

LOL ?. Now I know at least that all my guessings were correctly based on the dance fact. Basically: let’s continue guessing ?

This is about right ? this “hint” just confirms what we already know ?‍♀️

It’s dance time!

Chris left August.

Type your comment> @xct said:

Chris left August.

???

Well tried a few things manually here sitting at work with just notepad++ and a website for decoding. I’ve gotten no where so far, I haven’t fully tried using a substitution schema yet as the hint is walzer and that’s in triple time. But worked with blocks out of the string of characters. But can only do so much here at work. Anyone else?

Type your comment> @xct said:

Chris left August.

???

Dumb question. Why do authors feel so smart when they create guessing challenges like this one. This is so much like the guy who made Future Bender bragging about creating a terrible challenge.

@sampriti said:
This is so much like the guy who made Future Bender bragging about creating a terrible challenge.
Exactly, in my opinion this challenge is about XOR, 3DES or something, but every time we should BRUTEFORCE a key. Its just guessing…

Another misc OSINT+smth challenge)
I like it. We should think out of the border)

Type your comment> @sampriti said:

Dumb question. Why do authors feel so smart when they create guessing challenges like this one. This is so much like the guy who made Future Bender bragging about creating a terrible challenge.

Hi @sampriti, this is not a dumb question. And, believe me or not, I don’t feel smart (or smarter) at all.

When I created this challenge, more than one year and a half ago, I was trying to prove that, talking about this kind of exercises (that I don’t like), information asymmetry is of the essence.

What I did not realize - and I realize now - is that I got myself trapped, trying to point to information asymmetry with an example of… asymmetry.

That’s why is so difficult to give a hint without spoiling the entire solution.

If any of you feel mocked, I beg your pardon. I can assure that this was never my purpose. In fact, now I need you to get out of this impasse. Only a solution of this challenge can save me from my own trap. I know for sure that there is people among you who can solve it.

P.S. If I remember well, I submitted the challenge as 80pts. I silently blamed the tester when I saw it was demoted to 40pts. Now I don’t blame him anymore: I made him fall into my trap too. Again, I have to apologize.

I’m not really sure about what path we’re supposed to take with this challenge. In essence the asymmetry aspect of it makes absolute sense, but doesn’t make for a fun challenge.

The waltz hint is something that I think most people had already figured out, and unless I’m not reading into it enough, that’s everything we have to go on to solve this…