This week, we begin to reverse engineer the home-grown encryption algorithm discussed last week. Last week I offered you five examples of "encrypted" text that were generated by a home-grown crypto system. Your job was to reverse engineer the algorithm. . .. This week, we begin to reverse engineer the home-grown encryption algorithm discussed last week. Last week I offered you five examples of "encrypted" text that were generated by a home-grown crypto system. Your job was to reverse engineer the algorithm . Well, the week went by and folks did take a stab at it, but no one managed to break it yet. So I'm extending the contest another week. This article will provide the first part of the algorithm which should get you started. Once you get through this layer, you should be able to work through the solution in a few shifts.[2] If you break the code, write me email and the best writeup describing the algorithm will get a copy of Hacking Linux Exposed, Second Edition. So, let's look at the first part of my reverse engineering. We had only encrypted data to work with, and some idea of what acceptable contents would look like, in this case, normal English text. You might argue in an ideal world you would not have any idea what the plaintext would look like, but in the real world you can usually hazard a guess. For example if you find encrypted-looking text in a database, the field name will probably indicate what it is. If an email contains only an encrypted body, then it is likely composed of readable characters. The five encrypted strings were as follows: # String 1 !!@!1P!=P!?P!=P!?`!> `! @!A0!,P!> @!B@!A` # String 2 !T`!M0!TP!V0!X0!Y0!C@!P0!Y0!W0!UP!Y@!H@ ... . Join our coding challenge and immerse yourself in deconstructing a unique cipher system for an opportunity to triumph!. encryption challenge, cryptanalysis techniques, home-grown algorithms, code cracking contest. . LinuxSecurity.com Team
Its time for October's scan of the month. This months scan sponsored by Digital Forensic Research Workshop is slightly different than the scans of the month that you are used to. Scan 24 is available here. The police report. . .. Its time for October's scan of the month. This months scan sponsored by Digital Forensic Research Workshop is slightly different than the scans of the month that you are used to. Scan 24 is available here. The police report is available here. It is open to all that want to participate. This month's challenge requires all submissions to be submitted no later than 23:00 EST on Friday 25 October. The results will be available on Friday 1 November. One of the interesting changes to the challange for this month is the fact that you have to read the police report before continuing. This adds a real life aspect to the challenge. The police report provides you enough information to get started and a few pieces of evidence, but only enough to get you going. Its up to your interpretive, intuitive, and technical skills to go ahead further. Download the Image MD5 = b676147f63923e1f428131d59b1d6a72 The questions are available on the Scan 24 Page as well as some URLs to help you out. Good luck. The link for this article located at Honeynet.org is no longer available. . Engage in this month's investigative analysis competition designed to challenge your expertise with genuine case studies. Sign up today!. Digital Forensics Challenge, Forensic Investigation, Crime Scene Analysis. . LinuxSecurity.com Team
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