# HackPack CTF 2020: Time Window

The evil server admin has a secret but will only give it to you if you can guess his coveted hidden value, but it keeps changing with time: https://timed-key.cha.hackpack.club

Inspecting the HTML we see that after entering a code the function c is called:

<form onsubmit="javascript:c();return false;" action="javascript:c();">


c can be found in __.js which looks like this:

var x, y, dn = Date.now,
rc = function() {
return Math.floor(107 + 19 * Math.random())
},
rn = new Math.seedrandom("0x42").int32(),
rt = function() {
let r = Math.floor(1 + 7 * Math.random()),
e = [];
for (; r > 0;) e.push(rc()), r--;
return String.fromCharCode(...e)
},
rr = function(r, e) {
for (; r > 0;) e.unshift(e.pop()), --r;
return e.join("")
},
lr = function(r, e) {
for (; r > 0;) e.push(e.shift()), --r;
return e.join("")
},
cf = function(r) {
try {
let e = Array.from(atob(rr(243, Array.from(r)))),
n = 1;
for (let r = 0; r < e.length; r++) r === n && (e.splice(r + 1, +e[r + 1] + 1), n += n);
return +lr(168, e)
} catch (r) {}
return -1
},
c = function() {
let r = document.getElementById("message").value,
e = document.getElementById("msg");
x = rn % 2 == 0 ? lr : rr, y = rn % 2 != 0 ? lr : rr, cf(r) >= dn() - 6e4 ? fetch("/check", {
method: "POST",
mode: "same-origin",
cache: "no-cache",
"Content-Type": "application/json"
},
referrer: "no-refferer",
body: JSON.stringify({
key: r
})
}).then(r => r.json()).then(r => {
r.hasOwnProperty("flag") ? e.innerHTML = "Congrats! <br/>" + r.flag : e.innerText = "Nope!!!"
}).catch(r => {
console.error(r)
}) : e.innerText = "Nope!!!"
};


c basically performs the check cf(r) >= dn() - 6e4, and if successful sends the input to the server, which we can assume performs the same check before returning the flag. dn is the current date, so we see that the input is not especially time critical, we just need to make cf(r) large enough.

Reading the other functions, we see that rc returns a random character, rn a random number, and rt a random short string. rr and lr are right and left rotations. cf is more interesting, with the loop

for (let r = 0; r < e.length; r++)
r === n && (e.splice(r + 1, +e[r + 1] + 1), n += n)


at its heart. This loop looks at the characters in e at positions which are one above powers of two, omitting the zeroth power. For each such position i, it removes from e the corresponding character e[i], along with the Number(e[i]) immediately following characters. What is left can be anything that parses to a number.

We want this number to be large, but we might as well make it short – I choose 9e99. Now we counter the removal loop by inserting zeros (which will effectively remove themselves) in appropriate positions, giving us 9e0909. We can now leverage the JavaScript console to back-form a code which maps to our desired number

» m = lr(243, Array.from(btoa('9e0909')))
← "wOTA5OWU"


and then enter it

» document.getElementById('message').value = m; c()


to get the flag:

flag{'t1m3_w1nd0w_g3nk3y'}