B3

Platform: CUSTOM | Category: Crypto | Type: Challenge | Difficulty: Medium | OS: N/A | **Author: XESXOR Techniques: Concatenate all digits as one big base-3 number, Convert big integer to bytes, Map 3 symbols to ternary digits

Summary

Walkthrough of the CUSTOM Crypto B3. Task: 459 lines with 3 unique emoticons. Solution: Map emoticons to ternary digits (0,1,2), concatenate as one big base-3 number, convert to bytes to get the flag.

Description

459 lines of 3 emoticons. Treat as one big base-3 number and convert to ASCII.

Solution

Map emoticons to 0,1,2. Concatenate all 459 digits. Convert entire base-3 number to bytes. Key: treat as ONE big number, not groups. ‍​‌‌​​‌​​​‌‌​​‌​​​​‌‌​‌​​​​‌‌‌​​‌​​‌‌​​​‌​​‌‌‌​​​​​‌‌​‌‌​​​‌‌​​​​‍

Key Takeaways / Lessons

• Mastering Concatenate all digits as one big base-3 number, Convert big integer to bytes, Map 3 symbols to ternary digits was key to this challenge.
• Always check for common misconfigurations and verify assumptions.

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Crafted by XESXOR Research • 2026-03-08 • CUSTOM • B3 • Difficulty: Medium