Hackappatoi CTF 2023 - OSINT Writeup

Hackappatoi CTF 2023 was a jeopardy style CTF organized by the Hackappatoi team at La Sapienza University. I worked through its OSINT challenges.

Why not? (Naples)

We are given this video (opens in a new tab) and our task is to find the hotel Justin Bieber supposed to be staying in Naples. A quick Google search of "Justin Bieber Napoli Hotel" will give us the answer.

Italian mails (origins)

We are given this video (opens in a new tab) and asked to find the street where it was recorded. A man stands in front of an Italian postal company called "Poste Italiane". Searching for the man online showed that he was somewhat infamous. We also found a longer 4-minute version on YouTube with this description: "Here's Enzo the bum from Ostia! :)"

The video ends with another clue, the post office has a staircase and the presence of trees at its entrance.

We searched the post offices in Ostia for those features and found one on "Via Ferdinando Acton" street.

The meninges

Another video (opens in a new tab) showed Enzo again. Two stores appeared on camera, including one labeled "Sali E Tabbachi Lotto".

A quick Google Maps search showed that it was a tobacco shop (opens in a new tab) with many locations in Ostia. Checking them one by one would be slow, so we focused on the next store in the recording.

A Google search for "Pizzeria Rustica Del Capitano" led us to a pizza store on "Viale della Stella Polare" street in Ostia, where the video was recorded.

Telecamere?

The task was to find the filming location in this video (opens in a new tab). The background signs were unclear, but a reverse image search gave us a location clue.

Searching it on Google Maps pinpointed the recording location near "Via S. Biagio di Val Polcevera" street in Genoa. Sadly, the challenge remained unsolved because of flag format issues.

Sunkissed Enzo

Another video (opens in a new tab) featured Enzo. Its store signs were unreadable because of the low resolution, so we used the shadows on the ground instead.

The shadows showed that the camera faced along a west to east line, and the image was overexposed. A large gap behind the building on the left suggested a park or empty lot. The video also showed basement parking.

We then searched for the location manually. After a few days, we found the filming spot on "Via della Tolda" street in Ostia, though the event had already ended.