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We all complain about bugs in our code, but have you ever seen them in real life? For this project, the digital bug becomes analog! After my internship and master thesis, I wanted to give a small thank-you present to my office mates and supervisors.

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This present was actually a mini-CTF. I crocheted little bugs using this pattern, and glued them on a small base. At the bottom of a base, I put an NFC sticker.

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You can use any app on your phone to read and write such NFC stickers. But to make the CTF a little bit harder, I encoded the message hidden in the sticker.

To solve the CTF, follow the steps in the spoiler!

Click to show/hide CTF spoilers
  • Step 1: install any app or use the internal one to read out the NFC sticker
  • Step 2: Copy the encoded text message
  • Step 3: Use a tool such as Cyberchef to automatically decode. The message is Base64 encoded.
  • Step 4: Read the decrypted message!


I thought this would be a fun gift for anyone interested in Cyberspace. These bugs are more fun compared to software bugs ;)

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