LEVEL 5

Task

The password for the next level is stored in the only human-readable file in the inhere directory.

Tip: if your terminal is messed up, try the reset command.

Username: bandit4

Password: string provided in the .hidden file in the previous level

Theory

First, it’s important to define what “human-readable” means in this context. “Humand-readable” means that the data is presented in a format that is readable. The most common data encoding will be ASCII text and Unicode.

This is in contrast to machine-readable data e.g. UPC barcodes or binary codes.

Based on the task, I have to find a file with data that I can read, in the inhere directory.

Solution

Step 1: Log in using the username and password in the task.

Step 2: Type pwd to confirm my location in the directory.

Step 3: Type cd inhere to change to the inhere directory.

Step 4: Type ls -a to list out all hidden and non-hidden files in the current working directory.

Step 5: I realised I need a more detailed list. So I typed ls -la to list all files in a long list format.

Step 6: There are 10 files listed. I realised it will take a long time for me to cat all the files one by one.

Step 7: To solve this, I can type in file to determine the file type. At the same time, I can use * wildcard. This wildcard will match any number of characters or a set of characters.

Step 8: Combining both commands, I use file ./-file* to determine the file types. I have to use ./ in the command as the files’ names start with a dash (-).

Step 9: File 7 is identifited as a human-readable file. So I use the command cat ./-file07 to read the contents.

Level 5 completed.