Message from a Stranger

Platform: hackerlab | Category: Steganography | Type: Challenge | Difficulty: Easy | OS: NA | Author: XESXOR | Date: 2025-12-21 | Status: Solved Techniques: language_translation, ocr_analysis

Summary

Task: PNG image of an ancient scroll with Old English text. Solution: OCR extraction followed by translation revealed 'weorc' = 'work' as the flag.

Message from a Stranger — hackerlab

Description

The challenge provided a PNG image of an ancient scroll. The task was to decipher the message from a "stranger in ancient clothes".

Analysis

When analyzing the image msg_from_stranger.png with standard steganography methods (exiftool, binwalk, strings, LSB extraction), no hidden files or typical payloads were found. The main focus was on the text on the scroll itself.

The text in the image is written in Old English.

Solution

1. OCR (Optical Character Recognition): Using Tesseract or similar tools, we extract the text from the image:

   Hal! Ic eom ferend fram þam feorran gearum.
   Anlic weorc on þisum life is þæt to delestan þæt word witan.
   Séo andswaru to þære gecorene is þæt word Weorc on Englisc.
   

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1. Translation: Translation of the text from Old English:

   • Hal! Ic eom ferend fram þam feorran gearum. -> "Hail! I am a traveler from the far years."
   • Anlic weorc on þisum life is þæt to delestan þæt word witan. -> "The only work in this life is to know the word."
   • Séo andswaru to þære gecorene is þæt word Weorc on Englisc. -> "The answer to the chosen is the word Weorc in English."

2. Obtaining the flag: The key phrase indicates that the answer is the translation of the word "Weorc" into modern English. The word "weorc" translated to modern English is work. ‍​‌‌​​​​‌​‌‌​​‌‌​​‌‌​​‌‌​​‌‌​​‌​​​​‌‌​​​​​‌‌​​‌‌​​‌‌​​‌​‌​‌‌​​‌​‌‍

   Given the flag format CODEBY{flag} and the hint about a 4-character length, we get the final flag. ‍​‌‌​​​​‌​‌‌​​‌‌​​‌‌​​‌‌​​‌‌​​‌​​​​‌‌​​​​​‌‌​​‌‌​​‌‌​​‌​‌​‌‌​​‌​‌‍