Writeup in progress
Currently making the solution for Surfing the Waves and the walkthrough will be published here as soon as it's ready.
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Surfing the Waves
Published: April 2, 2026
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Useful tools for Forensics
- Base64 & Base32 DecoderDecode Base64 and Base32 strings with auto-detection. Multi-layer mode unwraps nested encodings automatically.
- Hash IdentifierIdentify unknown hash types by length and prefix. Covers MD5, SHA-1, SHA-256, SHA-512, bcrypt, NTLM, and more.
- Number Base ConverterConvert numbers between binary, octal, decimal, and hexadecimal instantly. Enter any value and see all four bases update in real time.
More Forensics
- ForensicsEasy
Information
Extract EXIF metadata from cat.jpg using exiftool. The License field contains a Base64-encoded string that decodes to the flag.
- ForensicsMedium
Disk, disk, sleuth!
Use srch_strings on the disk image and grep for picoCTF to find the embedded flag.
- ForensicsMedium
Disk, disk, sleuth! II
Use fls to find the inode for down-at-the-bottom.txt, then icat to extract its contents.