Treasure Hunt

 $ Welcome to the Digital Treasure Hunt! Your first clue is hidden in plain sight. It is a quote from HP Lovecraft: "That is not dead which can eternal lie, And with strange aeons even death may die." Find the next clue and proceed to the next step. Good luck!

$ ls

clue1.txt

$ cat clue1.txt

%uHGHGGP x;g,g?%b 3467Sdz.

$ python decrypt.py clue1.txt

The decrypted message reads: "Neil Gaiman once wrote: 'Books were safer than other people anyway.' Look for a book in the library and find the next clue."

$ cd library/

$ ls

book1.txt

$ cat book1.txt

This is just a random book.

$ steghide extract -sf book1.jpg

Enter passphrase:

steghide: could not extract any data with that passphrase!

$ ls

book1.txt book1.jpg

$ steghide extract -sf book1.jpg -p "Books were safer than other people anyway."

steghide: extracting file "clue2.txt" to current directory

$ cat clue2.txt

The message reads: "Douglas Adams once wrote: 'The ships hung in the sky in much the same way that bricks don't.' Look for a file in the Downloads folder and find the next clue."

$ cd ~/Downloads/

$ ls

clue2.pdf

$ pdfcrack -w /usr/share/wordlists/rockyou.txt clue2.pdf

found user-password: '42'

$ qpdf --password=42 --decrypt clue2.pdf clue2-decrypted.txt

$ cat clue2-decrypted.txt

The decrypted message reads: "Oscar Wilde once wrote: 'To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.' Use the password to open the file and find the next clue."

$ cd ~/Documents/

$ ls

clue3.txt

$ cat clue3.txt

The message reads: "Herman Melville once wrote: 'It is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation.' Find a hidden file in the Documents folder and find the next clue."

$ ls -a

. .. .clue3

$ cat .clue3

The message reads: "Mark Twain once wrote: 'The secret of getting ahead is getting started.' The next clue is hidden in an image file. Use steganography to find it."

$ steghide extract -sf image.jpg -p "The secret of getting ahead is getting started." -xf clue4.txt

$ cat clue4.txt

The message reads: "Arthur C Clarke once wrote: 'Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.' Look for a hidden folder in the root directory and find the next clue."

$ cd /

$ ls -a

. .. .hidden_folder

$ cd .hidden_folder

$ ls

final_clue.txt

$ cat final_clue.txt

The message reads: "Isaac Asimov once wrote: 'The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom.' Congratulations, you have found the treasure!"