Tyrannosaurus Hex - 10

This is an archived blog post I wrote while in high school.

It’s specifically about a question from a Capture the Flag (CTF) cybersecurity competition I competed in at the time. I originally posted it on Blogger.

I feel as though I shouldn’t even be writing about this question, because if one is incapable of answering even this question, I think they should maybe, perhaps gain a little more experience before competing in CTFs (sorry if that came out rude)…

The contents of the flash drive appear to be password protected. On the back of the flash drive, you see the hexadecimal number 0x1c9b2c5a scribbled in ink. The password prompt, however, only accepts decimal numbers. What number should you enter?

You are given a hexadecimal number, 0x1c9b2c5a, while it’s asking for a decimal number. The only thing you have to do is convert the hexadecimal number into a decimal number.

To do that, go to any hexadecimal to decimal converter website (just type “hexadecimal to decimal converter” in Google and a bunch of websites will pop up):

I am going to be using binaryhexconverter for this. Enter the hexadecimal number without the ‘0x’, so it looks like 1c9b2c5a, then press ‘Convert’.

Copy the decimal number (479931482) and paste into the answer box and voila! 10 points for your team.