**Writeup by author by request**

A file is given with a wordfind inside. Note the Flag: ____ ... part at the bottom of the file. Attempting to solve the word search questions results in the following answers:

1. not
2. xor
3. true
4. tix-oh
5. hp
6. esolangs (esoteric)
7. firebase
8. Cryptolocker
9. Baidu
10. Google (**current** company)

The instructions instruct us to find positions in the words to fill in the Flag: part. Doing so gives us:
nottheflag (_8583698472738370766571847970737868847269798472698270766571)

Trying to find the answers to the questions in the wordsearch (this is how a wordsearch works, right?) fails. The words are broken and incomplete. Is the wordsearch useless?

Attempting to submit the "flag" will result in the flag being rejected. Obviously, it is nottheflag.

Maybe the flag should be visited again. After messing with the numbers at the end of the flag, we discover that they can be turned into ASCII by pairing the digits and converting to ASCII. It converts to: USETHISFLAGTOFINDTHEOTHERFLAG.

So, nottheflag will be used to find the real flag.

Let's go back to the wordsearch. Maybe this can be used to find the flag. After all, it should serve a purpose. Using Ctrl-f with each character in the fake flag reveals letters.
Recording them, we obtain:
1. o from n
2. b from o
3. f from t
4. u from t (Note: This can be found from the first search for t)
5. s from h
6. c from e
7. A (a) from f
8. T (t) from l
9. E (e) from a
10. No clear letters for g (intentional)

Putting the letters together (in lowercase form), we get the word obfuscate. Trying this as the flag correctly solves the problem! tpctf{} is not needed as the flag does not follow the normal flag convention.