PROLOGUE
Sitting in a meeting room at the Tiberian Order HQ, Chinh Phuong started the Microsoft Teams meeting. Three individuals sitting in what looked to be a basement joined the meeting. The leader of the group spoke first.
“Good evening, my name is Pierre Blanc, we spoke earlier regarding your yearly training”
“Nice to meet you, Mr Blanc. My name is Chinh Phuong, head of the ASIC units at the Tiberian Order. It’s a true honor.”
“Please, call me Pierre. So, what is this training about?”
“Very well, Pierre. It’s a tradition for the Tiberian Order to organize a fun yet informative, yearly April training exercise. Usually themed after April Fools. We’d like to collaborate this year with S.I.S.U.”
“I see, that would be most wonderful. We can use the expertise such a large agency can provide us. And it seems you could learn for our more unorthodox methods.”
“Exactly, Pierre. We’d start the exercise April first and make it into a little competition. For us, we will have all units competing as soon as they’re available. The unit with the fastest time get crowned the winner”
“Most excellent, just keep in mind for our challenge, that we’re only one cell.”
“Of course, let’s hope for a fruitful partnership”
“Likewise Chinh, unit next time”
MISSION BRIEFING
Greetings, Special Agent K.
For now, Kotova and Schneider are on the back burner, as they’re under active surveillance. The case is under control, meaning your unit has time to participate in our yearly April training exercise.
This year we’ve chosen to partner with the S.I.S.U. group. An elite group of analysts, roughly the size of one of our ASIC cells. They’re skilled and only use their skills for good. This year, they’ve agreed to partner with the Tiberian Order on a training exercise.
We’ve prepared a training event for them, and they’ve done the same for us. Creating a series of intricate puzzles and exercises to get through. Now I’m not saying this is a match, but obviously there will be some inter-agency rivalry involved.
It’s your team’s task to complete the assignment as quickly as possible. Or not, but I know you couldn’t stand the other teams beating you.
As always, Special Agent K. Have fun on this one. And don’t lose, hail the peepeekun!
EPILOGUE
will be posted after the event
MATERIALS AND ANSWER INSTRUCTION
Steps to complete:
1 — Figure out the answer to the Operation
2 — Construct the password using instruction below to unlock the “flagfile”
3 — Use the “answer code” from “flagfile” to submit your score via the form below
Answer instruction: The final password is a string of random characters
Vault file: Use the first word of each what3words location, like so: ball.sky.book
METHODOLOGY
Use steghide extract -sf april-fools-start.jpg This extracts a url from the initial photo https://puzzel.org/jigsaw/play?p=-NQp9exKMXWnGm0AyXzw -> Link extracted.
The link opens to a jigsaw puzzle that must be completed to move on to the next step.
Certain jigsaw puzzle pieces contain white text on them which join together to create a URL -> http://bit.ly/3LDysz7 The URL leads to a dropbox that contains 3 photos which must be geolocated and matched to the website what3words.
As the answer instruction says, take the first word of each of the what3word images combine and this is the password to open the vault file. PW -> case.thrillers.jams
On the fourth vault image the password to the answer code is hidden in plain sight in the lower right corner.
