Crack the Code in Cyber Command's Logo | Hacker News Reader

Crack the Code in Cyber Command's Logo

wired.com

40 pointschip26 comments

echo md5('USCYBERCOM plans, coordinates, integrates, synchronizes and conducts activities to: direct the operations and defense of specified Department of Defense information networks and; prepare to, and when directed, conduct full spectrum military cyberspace operations in order to enable actions in all domains, ensure US/Allied freedom of action in cyberspace and deny the same to our adversaries.');

results in

9ec4c12949a4f31474f299058ce2b22a

Lame.

I mean... it's the MD5 of a snippet of content off their website? That really tells you all you need to know about "Cyber Command", doesn't it?

It is the same length as an md5sum which isn't solved. Googling 9EC4C12949A4F31474F299058CE2B22A bring up this strange site: http://www.niconnect.com/

Which just has a QR code on the front of the site and nothing else. Decoding the QR with http://zxing.org/w/decode.jspx shows the text:

NICONNECT.COM Poder Cibernetico 9EC4C12949A4F31474F299058CE2B22A Brazil

"Poder Cibernetico" in Portuguese sounds like "Cyber Power" or something such.

The above site has <meta http-equiv="Objective" content="Hash Exploit"> in as well.

Poder is power in Latin as well. Cibernetico might be a latin translation of Cybernetic.... I'm expecting a Latin moto as per usual on these things. Still can't get the hash, tried a number of different capitalisations.

It's possible that "Poder Cibernetico" is how they chose to translate Cyber Command.

But they also have the lighting in the heraldry, which is a symbol for power. Dunno what the swords might be, military?

Did someone just chuck up that page to get some SEO juice out of all this buzz?

Yes, I think so.

If you look at the page source you see the 9EC4C12949A4F31474F299058CE2B22A string with text color 006600 and the background color is 006600.

The md5 decrypted via md5decrypter.com resolves to:

"SCYBERCOM plans, coordinates, integrates, synchronizes and conducts activities to: direct the operations and defense of specified Department of Defense information networks and; prepare to, and when directed, conduct full spectrum military cyberspace operations in order to enable actions in all domains, ensure US/Allied freedom of action in cyberspace and deny the same to our adversaries."

You're missing a U at the beginning of the string.

>The U.S. military’s new Cyber Command is headquartered at Ft. Meade, Maryland – one of the military’s most secretive and secure facilities.

And yet they use something akin to viral marketing to raise awareness of its existence?

I imagine someone with some good GPU power could try and brute force the hash. With something like http://hashcat.net/oclhashcat/

It would be interesting to see if anything comes out of it.

I didn't read this very carefully, but why does 128 bits automatically make it a hash? That's also the block size for AES, and the length of the string "US Cyber Command".

That's what I thought.

If they expect it to be cracked (which they might, why put it there if you don't expect anyone to crack it) it could be something much simpler. I'd maybe start looking at some sort of substitution scheme or something similar.

i bet they heard of some cyber attack on the government and they wanted to get all you geaks together and you'd come across what they wanted to know and then bam they take the credit and so on becuase they are stupid

It decodes to the email address of the recruiting officer...

...maybe :)

It might mean something like a computer kill code or something

It's a hash. Not in any of my rainbow tables though =/

So 128 bits? I'd guess they wouldn't use md5 (or any of the md family), which according to wiki leaves haval/ripemd/tiger. I'd go for ripemd-128 (on what the wiki says) although you would expect them to use a NSA blessed algorithm.

Wouldn't you also expect it to be realistically crackable? Otherwise why bother

I don't think they're expecting it to be cracked, per se, just guessed. I don't have to have defeated the SHA-256 algorithm to find your hashed password in a rainbow table.

just curious, how do you know it's a hash?

The same way that something which smells like feet is "known" to be a shoe.

i.e.: zero proof, but good correlation.

or get this one they are looking for hackers and they well you all fell into their trap??? dunno lol conspiracies are born everyday.

the reason i say this is because i've tried cracking a few ways and for some reason they are stopped not by me but someone else.

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