Tags: crypto
Rating:
# 12-shades-of-redpwn
**Category:** Crypto
**Points:** 429
**Description:**
> Everyone's favorite guess god Tux just sent me a flag that he somehow
encrypted with a color wheel!
>
> I don't even know where to start, the wheel looks more like a clock than a
cipher... can you help me crack the code?
>
> **Author:** Boolean
>
> **Given:** ciphertext.jpg && color-wheel.jpg
## Writeup
This one took me a while to figure out for some reason (lol). The hint gave me
the idea that the colors in the chart were corresponding to the numbers on the
clock (1-12), but I was just a tiny bit wrong. The color wheel had values
**(0-11)**, but in hex *obviously...* (sarcasm). Here is my edited version:
Now, with this and our ciphertext, we can start plugging and chugging values. Our
result is the following:
```
86 90 81 87 a3 49 99 43 97 97 41 92 49 7b 41 97 7b 44 92 7b 44 96 98 a5
```
Translating this from hex to ASCII, doesn't give us anything but gunk...
```
....¢I.C..A.I{A.{D.{D..¥
```
After a while of staring at this stupuid color wheel and hex values I derived from
it, I started noticing that ` 86 90 81 87 ` represents ` flag ` and the `a3` and
`a5` values are two apart (have to be curly braces). It finally hit me that this is
in base12. This changes our ascii representation of these values:
```
41 -> 1 62 -> J 83 -> c a4 -> |
42 -> 2 63 -> K 84 -> d a5 -> }
43 -> 3 64 -> L 85 -> e
44 -> 4 65 -> M 86 -> f
45 -> 5 66 -> N 87 -> g
46 -> 6 67 -> O 88 -> h
47 -> 7 68 -> P 89 -> i
48 -> 8 69 -> Q 8a -> j
49 -> 9 6a -> R 8b -> k
4a -> : 6b -> S 90 -> l
4b -> ; 70 -> T 91 -> m
50 -> < 71 -> U 92 -> n
51 -> = 72 -> V 93 -> o
52 -> > 73 -> W 94 -> p
53 -> ? 74 -> X 95 -> q
54 -> @ 75 -> Y 96 -> r
55 -> A 76 -> Z 97 -> s
56 -> B 77 -> [ 98 -> t
57 -> C 78 -> \ 99 -> u
58 -> D 79 -> ] 9a -> v
59 -> E 7a -> ^ 9b -> w
5a -> F 7b -> _ a0 -> x
5b -> G 80 -> ' a1 -> y
60 -> H 81 -> a a2 -> z
61 -> I 82 -> b a3 -> {
```
Now decoding with our base12 ASCII representation gives us the flag.
## Flag
flag{9u3ss1n9_1s_4n_4rt}
## Resources
[ASCII Chart](http://www.asciitable.com/)
