43

May 28, 2022
2 min read
43

43

Solvers
B Battlemonger ,
Category
OSINT
Points
500
Flag
byuctf{micky_dolenz}

It’s at your fingertips!! Who made this code? S fsu om yjr aogr 3"45`
format: byuctf{blank_blank}

Looks like something the DCode Cipher Identifier could figure out:

dCode's analyzer suggests to investigate:
Keyboard Shift Cipher ■■■■■■■■■▪
Substitution Cipher ▪
Shift Cipher ▪
Homophonic Cipher ▫
ROT Cipher ▫

I threw it into their [Keyboard Shift Cipher](https://www.dcode.fr/ keyboard-shift-cipher) and got this:

qwerty → A day in the \ife 2:34
qwerty ← D gdi p, ukt spht 4A56
qwerty ↓↻ W va7 ln ume slf4 e:v6
qwerty ↑4 S fsu om yjr aogr 3_45
qwerty ↓4 S fsu om yjr aogr 3{45

“A Day in the Life” is a song by the [Beatles](https://www.youtube.com/watch? v=usNsCeOV4GM) (a fascinatingly good one too), and I took a look the decoded timestamp 2:34 in the music video:

Screenshot of Beatles music video

Although I couldn’t find who the person in the timestamp was, someone in the comments named the individuals at timestamps:

Screenshot of Beatles music video comments

Nesmith

The guy at 3:31 is the same as the guy at 2:34, so it’s Michael Nesmith from the Monkees.

Looking up “Monkees 43” on Google, we discover that there’s actually an old website called monkeesrule43.com.

This is where you guess all the names of the Monkees. Not sure of the logical thought process yet. Flag is byuctf{micky_dolenz}.

Remark (Edit (06/02/22))

The intended solve was to look at monkeesrule43.com. In their FAQ page, Question 13 asks:

13.) What does the weird writing on Micky’s page of the Monkees’ 2001 summer tourbook mean?

  • Micky’s page is written in a computer keyboard code. Each letter written stands for the letter to the left of it on a computer keyboard. For example, “Zovlu” means Micky & “Jo!” means Hi!

This intended solution was pretty weird. Whoever wrote this challenge is probably the #1 Beatles fan of all time if they can remember stuff like this.