CTF-Writeups

Temptation. Stone. Silence. - CTF Challenge

Category: OSINT
Difficulty: Medium
Flag: 0xfun{Mālpils_Ērgļi_Lube}

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Download Temptation. Stone. Silence..zip - Try to solve it yourself before reading the writeup!

Challenge Summary

Three images, three fragments — each pointing to a Latvian place. Identify the Latvian place name for each image and submit:

0xfun{City1_City2_City3}

Latvian spelling and diacritics are required.

Overview / Approach

Each image is a “fragment” that points to a location. Three separate OSINT mini-tasks:

  1. Temptation → find a distinctive object via reverse image search + confirm exact location.
  2. Stone → identify the carved face/person first, then locate the matching monument/grave.
  3. Silence → use the legend clue (deal with the devil) + the “boat” shape to locate the site.

Main techniques:

1. Temptation (Golden Pig) → Mālpils

What I Saw

A large golden pig statue on grass, with flowers and a small landscaped structure nearby.

Steps

  1. Reverse image search the pig photo.
  2. Results pointed to two candidate locations: Rīga and Mālpils.
  3. The reverse search alone didn’t fully disambiguate, so I looked for the exact photo and any metadata.
  4. The image had a date stamp, and with that I found a matching photo set in the LETA photo archive, where the location is explicitly listed as Mālpils.

Reference (LETA album):

https://leta.lv/photo/album/A9CD3C76-C38D-44E6-928B-0D160A6E3101

City1 = Mālpils

2. Stone (Boulder with Carved Face) → Ērgļi

What I Saw

A large boulder in a forest with a carved portrait medallion (face in relief) embedded into the stone.

Steps

  1. Reverse image search was not immediately helpful.
  2. Shifted to identifying the face: searching for “Latvian writer portrait relief stone” and similar terms.
  3. The face matches Rūdolfs Blaumanis (Latvian writer / playwright).
  4. Searching for Rūdolfs Blaumanis + grave / memorial leads to a grave site in Ērgļi, where photos show the same distinctive stone with the portrait medallion.

City2 = Ērgļi

3. Silence (Stone “Boat” in Forest) → Lube

What I Saw

A quiet forest clearing with a low, elongated stone formation resembling a boat.

Steps

  1. Reverse image search and generic keyword attempts didn’t return a clean match.
  2. Used the narrative clue: “The silence of a legend” and “They say the region’s elder once made a deal with the devil…”
  3. Combining Latvian devil folklore + boat, searched for legends/monuments with that motif.
  4. This led to a known site/monument referred to as a “devil’s boat” in a forest next to Lube.
  5. Comparing images of that site with the challenge image confirmed the match.

City3 = Lube

Final Flag

0xfun{Mālpils_Ērgļi_Lube}

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