hacker.org

Hi there!

I think this is a typical hacker.org challenge. So I have to find the source where the image was generated. Pretty obvious, if you know other map services than google maps... :-p

I did a rough cross-check and recognized, that the source has changed. (Very bad, if you want to find differences and you get too much diffs...) I found a timestamp in the image, so I thought: Hey, have a look in the changelog from the source. Maybe I could lookup which changes were made at that exact date and time. But the database of the map service is so slow *sigh*, that the webscript gets a timeout, when I try to lookup the date.

Am I on the right track or is it a dead end?
Having a look to every pixel of the image manually in order to find the answer is not the appropriate way; not for a hacker... :-p

A hint would be nice.

honze wrote:Having a look to every pixel of the image manually in order to find the answer is not the appropriate way; not for a hacker... :-p

A hint would be nice.

You are completely right, to do this manually would not be something a hacker would do

honze wrote:But the database of the map service is so slow *sigh*, that the webscript gets a timeout, when I try to lookup the date.

Have to agree there, this really sucks. I'm getting timeouts or "Sorry, the list of changesets you requested took too long to retrieve" as reply.

perhaps you could do without the original map?

rmplpmpl wrote:perhaps you could do without the original map?

How am I supposed to find a difference between two things, when I only have one?

It's very hard to give a hint, without giving away too much, but you are not looking for a difference, so you are fine with this one map given in the challenge.
This said: if you only have this one file, what information does it have that you could extract

no problem, you don't need the map... the file in the challenge is enough to get the solution!

Is an image manipulation programm the right tool or do i need a hex-editor
just like in the 'Filtration Residue'-Challenge ?

magnus wrote:Is an image manipulation programm the right tool or do i need a hex-editor
just like in the 'Filtration Residue'-Challenge ?

Hard to answer - some image manipulation programs can help you a long way to the solution, but you will probably have to write some sort of script to get the solution as the amount of data is much too big to do it manually

I think, the solution is not format-dependant. It would also work for a bmp or tiff - file.
Analyzing the png-internals returned nothing for me. No alpha-channel or so...
Still difficult, since i have no idea what to look for. I tried all sort of Photoshop-tricks
like searching for colors only exitent in a small area because i thought the spot is marked
in a different color than the rest - but nothing found. Any small hint what to look for.
Would i recognize the spot when i see it ?

Only if you have a very, very good memory... your "Photoshop-tricks" sound like they might be on the right lines, though.