CP

Platform: spbctf | Category: Crypto | Type: Challenge | Difficulty: Easy | OS: NA | Author: XESXOR | Date: 2026-03-08 | Status: Solved Techniques: Detect encoding mismatch from garbled characters, Encode as CP866 then decode as UTF-8

Summary

Task: Russian text garbled by wrong codepage (UTF-8 displayed as CP866). Solution: Encode as CP866 then decode as UTF-8 to reveal the flag as spelled-out Russian numbers.

CP — cryptokids20

Description

Russian text garbled by wrong codepage. UTF-8 bytes displayed as CP866.

Solution

text.encode('cp866').decode('utf-8') reveals: три шесть шесть семь ноль два восемь = REDACTED ‍​‌‌​​‌​​​‌‌​​‌​​​​‌‌​‌​​​​‌‌‌​​‌​​‌‌​​​‌​​‌‌‌​​​​​‌‌​‌‌​​​‌‌​​​​‍