No Comment

The challenge name suggest there will be no comment in image. So I begin with analyzing the metadata of an image file. Using exiftool, a key piece of metadata was found:

There is a comment!

I figure out that is a part of the link to Imgur album. By accessing the URL https://imgur.com/a/pq6TgwS, you can find an image with a base64 encoded string:

V2hhdCBhICJsb25nX3N0cmFuZ2VfdHJpcCIgaXQncyBiZWVuIQoKaHR0cHM6Ly9wYXN0ZWJpbi5jb20vRmRjTFRxWWc=

The base64 string decoded to: What a "long_strange_trip" it's been! https://pastebin.com/FdcLTqYg

The provided Pastebin link was password protected. Using the hint from the decoded message, long_strange_trip was used as the password, revealing a hex string:

25213a2e18213d2628150e0b2c00130e020d024004301e5b00040b0b4a1c430a302304052304094309

Other paste by this user provided a hint:

I've been learning all about cryptography recently, it's cool you can just XOR data with a password and nobody can recover it!!

The hex string was XORed with the key long_strange_trip, leads us to the flag: Flag: INTIGRITI{instagram.com/reel/C7xYShjMcV0}