Where Snakes Die

Description

Author: cg

The flag to this challenge is all lowercase, with no underscores.

crypto2.zip

Analysis

We are given a clue.txt. If opened with normal editor we can only see | symbols seperated by spaces, but using VSCode we can render whitespaces.

where-snake-die-1

Note: To render whitespaces: F1 -> View: Toggle Render Whitespace

Solution

Rendered tab and space icons make me think this is morse code. First I checked unique symbols and then I translated characters into morse code characters.

with open("clue.txt") as f:
    clue = f.read()

unique_chars = set(clue)
print(f"Unique Characters: {unique_chars}")

morse = (
    clue.
    replace('\t', '-').  # Replace tabs with dashes
    replace(' ', '.').   # Replace spaces with dots
    replace('|', ' / '). # Change pipe to slash
    strip()              # Remove excess whitespaces
)
print(morse)

Using dcode Morse Decoder we can easily get the flag.

Dont forget! flag has to have ctf format, all lowercase and no underscores.