picoCTF General Skills Guide

Tab, Tab, Attack

Name: Tab, Tab, Attack
Description: Using tabcomplete in the Terminal will add years to your life, esp. when dealing with long rambling directory structures and filenames: Addadshashanammu.zip
Author: syreal
Tags: Easy, General Skills, picoCTF 2021
Challenge from: picoCTF 2021
Files: Addadshashanammu.zip
Hints:
1. After `unzip`ing, this problem can be solved with 11 button-presses...(mostly Tab)...

Theory

According to the description, to get the flag we have to do something with the tab autocomplete thing, I really don't know what to expect for this one, so let's just go with it.

Solution

First download and unzip:

shukularuni-picoctf@webshell:~$ wget https://mercury.picoctf.net/static/9689f2b453ad5daeb73ca7534e4d1521/Addadshashanammu.zip
--2025-04-17 01:18:29--  https://mercury.picoctf.net/static/9689f2b453ad5daeb73ca7534e4d1521/Addadshashanammu.zip
Resolving mercury.picoctf.net (mercury.picoctf.net)... 18.189.209.142, ...
Connecting to mercury.picoctf.net (mercury.picoctf.net)|18.189.209.142|:443... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
Length: 4519 (4.4K) [application/octet-stream]
Saving to: 'Addadshashanammu.zip'

Addadshashanammu.zip                                                100%[=================================================================================================================================================================>]   4.41K  --.-KB/s    in 0s    

2025-04-17 01:18:30 (1.51 GB/s) - 'Addadshashanammu.zip' saved [4519/4519]

shukularuni-picoctf@webshell:~$ unzip Addadshashanammu.zip

So it seems there's a bunch of folders with weird names, but we can easily do it with tab autocomplete:

shukularuni-picoctf@webshell:~$ cd Addadshashanammu/

shukularuni-picoctf@webshell:~/Addadshashanammu$ ls
Almurbalarammi

shukularuni-picoctf@webshell:~/Addadshashanammu$ cd Almurbalarammi/

shukularuni-picoctf@webshell:~/Addadshashanammu/Almurbalarammi$ ls
Ashalmimilkala

shukularuni-picoctf@webshell:~/Addadshashanammu/Almurbalarammi$ cd Ashalmimilkala/

shukularuni-picoctf@webshell:~/Addadshashanammu/Almurbalarammi/Ashalmimilkala$ ls
Assurnabitashpi

shukularuni-picoctf@webshell:~/Addadshashanammu/Almurbalarammi/Ashalmimilkala$ cd Assurnabitashpi/

shukularuni-picoctf@webshell:~/Addadshashanammu/Almurbalarammi/Ashalmimilkala/Assurnabitashpi$ ls
Maelkashishi

shukularuni-picoctf@webshell:~/Addadshashanammu/Almurbalarammi/Ashalmimilkala/Assurnabitashpi$ cd Maelkashishi/

shukularuni-picoctf@webshell:~/Addadshashanammu/Almurbalarammi/Ashalmimilkala/Assurnabitashpi/Maelkashishi$ ls
Onnissiralis

shukularuni-picoctf@webshell:~/Addadshashanammu/Almurbalarammi/Ashalmimilkala/Assurnabitashpi/Maelkashishi$ cd Onnissiralis/

shukularuni-picoctf@webshell:~/Addadshashanammu/Almurbalarammi/Ashalmimilkala/Assurnabitashpi/Maelkashishi/Onnissiralis$ ls
Ularradallaku

shukularuni-picoctf@webshell:~/Addadshashanammu/Almurbalarammi/Ashalmimilkala/Assurnabitashpi/Maelkashishi/Onnissiralis$ cd Ularradallaku/

shukularuni-picoctf@webshell:~/Addadshashanammu/Almurbalarammi/Ashalmimilkala/Assurnabitashpi/Maelkashishi/Onnissiralis/Ularradallaku$ ls
fang-of-haynekhtnamet

Now that we are in the directory with the executable, let's just give it permissions and run it:

shukularuni-picoctf@webshell:~/Addadshashanammu/Almurbalarammi/Ashalmimilkala/Assurnabitashpi/Maelkashishi/Onnissiralis/Ularradallaku$ chmod +x fang-of-haynekhtnamet 

shukularuni-picoctf@webshell:~/Addadshashanammu/Almurbalarammi/Ashalmimilkala/Assurnabitashpi/Maelkashishi/Onnissiralis/Ularradallaku$ ./fang-of-haynekhtnamet 
*ZAP!* picoCTF{l3v3l_up!_t4k3_4_r35t!_2bcfb2ab}

There we go! That's the flag.

I rated this level as "good"! :3