Description
How well can you perfom basic binary operations?
Additional details will be available after launching your challenge instance.
Setup
Launch the picoCTF instance so it assigns you a unique port number for your session.
Connect to titan.picoctf.net with that port via netcat to receive the randomized prompts.
Solution
- Step 1Understand the challengeEach run gives a series of six questions that perform operations on two binary numbers. The values below are from one walkthrough; your connection will use different operands. Use the Binary Calculator tool for most of these conversions since it handles AND/OR/XOR, addition, and bit shifts without mistakes.
- Step 1Bitwise AND (&)
Compute 11010100 & 00100001
Answer: 00000000
Any overlapping 1 bits survive the AND; otherwise the result bit is 0.
- Step 2Bitwise OR (|)
Compute 11010100 | 00100001
Answer: 11110101
OR preserves 1s from either operand. RapidTables' binary calculator makes this trivial.
Multiply 11010100 * 00100001
Answer: 1101101010100
Binary multiplication mirrors base-10 long multiplication: stack the numbers and shift addends.
- Step 4Left shift (<<)
Shift 11010100 left by 1 bit
Answer: 110101000
Appending a single 0 on the right multiplies the number by two.
- Step 5Addition (+)
Compute 11010100 + 00100001
Answer: 11110101
Binary addition carries just like decimal math, so watch the carry chain in the middle bits.
- Step 6Right shift (>>)
Shift 00100001 right by 1 bit
Answer: 10000
A right shift divides by two, chopping the least-significant bit.
Helpful resources
Flag
picoCTF{b1tw^3se_0p3eR@tI0n_su33essFuL_aea...}
After answering all six prompts correctly, the service asks for the hexadecimal form of the final value (10000₂ = 0x10). Submit that answer to receive the flag above.