Enhance! | picoCTF 2022 Solutions

Description

Despite the hint to “enhance,” there’s no need to zoom the image; just read the text stored in the SVG file.

Setup

Run `strings` or open the SVG in a text editor.

Grep for lines containing `>` / `<` and strip the XML tags to reveal the embedded characters.

strings drawing.flag.svg | grep ">" | cut -d '>' -f2 | cut -d '<' -f1 | tr -d '\n '

Step 1Treat the SVG as text
SVG files are XML, so you can view them as text. The flag’s letters appear as separate `<text>` nodes.
Step 2Remove the markup
Use grep/cut/tr to eliminate the tags, remove whitespace, and concatenate the characters into the final flag.

picoCTF{3nh4nc3d_24374675}

Sometimes “enhancing” means simply inspecting the source.