The Historical CTF

RSA revolutionized the Internet.

The 1977 release of Rivest, Shamir, and Adleman's seminal paper, "A Method for Obtaining Digital Signatures and Public-Key Cryptosystems", was a great moment in the history of computing, as it allowed the Internet to evolve into the commercial and economic hub that it is today.

But it's not without its flaws.

Over the past few decades, RSA has been scrutinized by researchers, who have unveiled vulnerabilities based on mathematical analysis and implementation flaws. Tracing these vulnerabilities in an interactive CTF setting is the perfect way to learn about the history of cryptography.

The Backstory

On January 3rd, 1978, a large bank lost $100 million when a hacker broke into its database and wired the contents of many accounts to an anonymous Swiss bank account. The FBI has been tipped towards investigating a cryptographic researcher, Bob Badguy, but have failed to mount a case against him in the 37 years since.

Badguy is known for his keen interest in the emerging field of public-key cryptography, pioneered by Whitfield Diffie and Martin Hellman in 1976. Over the past 37 years, he's covered his tracks using the cutting-edge cryptography available to him at the time.

Now, it's up to you to break his code and put Badguy away for good.

Interested in the source?

Check out our GitHub.

Developed by James Evans and Charles Marsh

as a final project for Princeton's COS 583.


Released under the MIT License.