Nightschool
🌙 Night School: A CTF Adventure in Geocaching 🕵️♂️
🎭 Introduction
In the world of Capture the Flag (CTF) competitions, challenges often take us to unusual places—sometimes even outside the virtual realm. Recently, I encountered a unique CTF task involving geocaching at George Mason University’s Fairfax campus. Our goal? To locate a statue from an image left by a “famous geocacher” who had, as the story goes, vanished after dropping a cryptic clue. 🏛️🔍
🧩 The Challenge
📜 Prompt
It’s said that a famous geocacher has left a cache on our Fairfax campus. He took this picture before disappearing into the night. Could you help us find where this picture was taken? The flag is
pctf{NAME_OF_STATUE}
🎯 Task: nighttimestatue
With only a dark, indistinct photo to go on, the challenge tested our resourcefulness in navigating the campus—without actually being there. The image’s darkness ruled out Google Lens, so we had to get creative. 🖼️🔦
🕵️♀️ The Hunt
- Initial Search: Started by searching “George Mason University statues” 🖥️
- Expected to find a catalog of campus statues
- Result: Overwhelmed by results about the George Mason statue 😓
- Persistence Pays Off: After patient clicking and searching… 🔍
- Discovered discover-mason, a valuable resource 💎
- Found a gallery containing the exact statue from the image 🎉
🏆 The Solution
🔓 Solving: nightschool-solve
With the right statue identified, I unlocked the flag: pctf{communitas}.
This CTF experience was a reminder of the importance of patience and persistence, especially when the answers aren’t immediately clear. Geocaching meets CTF—a fun, challenging blend of digital sleuthing and real-world problem-solving!