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Can't understand "Trip to the past"

Posted: Sun Nov 09, 2008 11:55 am
by fwjmath
Simply can't figure out what this challenge wants.
I've tried to fake a date in my http request, though I know that a request needs no date.
Also tried to fake the user-agent, no help neither.

Can anyone give me a really really small hint? Thanks.

fwjmath.

Posted: Sun Nov 09, 2008 1:01 pm
by gfoot
I haven't solved it, but I guess the fact that it quotes your user agent is a clue. Using tools that don't send a user agent, it just refers to you as "anonymous" or something like that.

I guess it's waiting for a specific user agent, but there's not much clue as to which one.

Posted: Sun Nov 09, 2008 2:20 pm
by Grammaton
After some tries, i stopped this level.
I did some workarounds with some injections in user-agent => no luck
tried some extra headers like, date, cache-control and so => no luck

I figured out that user-agent is only cheking for some strings.
i assume something like this pseudo code:
if insideuseragent("MSIE") return "IE"
if insideuseragent("Opera") return "Opera"
if insideuseragent("Konqueror") return "Konqueror"
if insideuseragent("Chrome") return "Chrome"
if insideuseragent("Safari") return "Safari"
if insideuseragent("Gecko") return "Firefox"
... maybe there are more string compares, feel free to complete my list :-)
return "anonymous"

cheers,
Grammaton

Posted: Sun Nov 09, 2008 3:07 pm
by snibril
You are to young :lol:

Posted: Sun Nov 09, 2008 3:26 pm
by fwjmath
snibril wrote:You are to young :lol:
Though, I just got it down, with a lot of searches.
Which is more confusing is that, at first I used an older version of the specific user-agent string, but it didn't accept it. Next I tried a newer (of course relatively speaking) one, and buff! It worked!

But you're right, snibril, I'm too young to solve this easily. :)

Posted: Sun Nov 09, 2008 3:44 pm
by Grammaton
Thank you for the hint snibril!
I got it, too :-)

Posted: Sun Nov 09, 2008 4:37 pm
by gfoot
I tried setting it to the first web browser ever, and it didn't work. I guess that's just too old then.

Posted: Tue Nov 11, 2008 1:43 am
by sigi
gfoot wrote:I tried setting it to the first web browser ever, and it didn't work. I guess that's just too old then.
There is one particular web browser which springs to mind easily to anybody who has witnessed the birth of the WWW, but of course it's not used anymore for a long time by now.

If you've never heard of it before it's of course impossible to guess out of the blue but certainly possible to research. Some Wikipedia articles about the history of the WWW will guide you into the right direction.

I actually downloaded the source code for that browser to make sure I got the correct user agent string (after some failures). I'm not sure if that is really necessary, it depends on how fascist the checking routine is about the string.

You might even find a working version of the browser in question (depending on your operating system, this might not be easy, however!).

Posted: Tue Nov 11, 2008 3:22 am
by the_impaler
[quote="sigi"][quote="gfoot"]I tried setting it to the first web browser ever, and it didn't work. I guess that's just too old then.[/quote]
There is one particular web browser which springs to mind easily to anybody who has witnessed the birth of the WWW, but of course it's not used anymore for a long time by now.

If you've never heard of it before it's of course impossible to guess out of the blue but certainly possible to research. Some Wikipedia articles about the history of the WWW will guide you into the right direction.

I actually downloaded the source code for that browser to make sure I got the correct user agent string (after some failures). I'm not sure if that is really necessary, it depends on how fascist the checking routine is about the string.

You might even find a working version of the browser in question (depending on your operating system, this might [i]not[/i] be easy, however!).[/quote]

Looking into source code is always encouraged by this group of hackers.

Posted: Tue Nov 11, 2008 10:56 am
by gfoot
sigi wrote:There is one particular web browser which springs to mind easily to anybody who has witnessed the birth of the WWW, but of course it's not used anymore for a long time by now.
Granted, but it wasn't the first web browser ever. Maybe it was the first to pass a user agent header?

Posted: Mon Dec 01, 2008 6:32 pm
by lukas
I need a little help,

I also tried to simulate an another browser client and another post date

then I found this Thread and read the paragraph "not the oldest Broser... a newer one works"
and "a search in wikipedia will help"

So I tried some browser versions:

Netscape:

Code: Select all

	1.1
	1.22
	2.0
	2.02
	3.04
	4.03
	4.04
	4.07
	4.08navonly
	4.5comm
	4.61comm
	4.72comm
	4.74communicator
	4.75communicator
	4.77communicator
	4.8
	6.0
	7.1
and Mosaic:

Code: Select all

	2.1
	3.0


But nothing work :(

really need help

Posted: Fri Jun 12, 2009 6:03 am
by BlackInTheBox
ahh, got it now, thanks.. at first i was clued in on the way back machine but now i see just how wrong i was.

Posted: Sat Jun 27, 2009 6:38 am
by Washik
Because You are not a Hacher........
Thanks Advance For Understanding. :lol: :lol: :lol:

Posted: Wed May 18, 2011 8:13 pm
by Millennium
I was sure that it was Netscape but even that's not working -_-

wrong? broken?

Posted: Sat Jun 11, 2011 10:11 pm
by BadCop
Hey there,

i tested many user agent strings from http://www.useragentstring.com/pages/us ... string.php
according to the history of web-browsers http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c ... owsers.svg

Nothing works.

Any suggestions? please PM me