# Riddle Registry : picoCTF

![](https://cdn.hashnode.com/res/hashnode/image/upload/v1765480060106/f742d2ba-5dc7-4de4-a098-ce4d759795a3.png align="center")

this is the problem , so without wasting any more time let’s download the pdf

![](https://cdn.hashnode.com/res/hashnode/image/upload/v1765480100291/85dc72c4-c8fe-4004-b016-8e01d2f09cf7.png align="center")

this is the pdf, initially I thought the text will be there below the black marks but no that’s not the case

![](https://cdn.hashnode.com/res/hashnode/image/upload/v1765480170247/c4a5ea38-fb4b-45f2-b5bc-3a08cd9fb468.png align="center")

even it says no flag here, nice try though! haha so let’s look at the clues :

clue 1 : Don't be fooled by the visible text; it’s just a decoy!

clue 2: Look beyond the surface for hidden clues

ok so what can be hidden ? any metadata ? yes so there is a website to extract the metadata  
[https://www.metadata2go.com](https://www.metadata2go.com)

![](https://cdn.hashnode.com/res/hashnode/image/upload/v1765481079842/db6ff0c1-ba2f-4cdb-8411-9fd4e74e6699.png align="center")

here I am getting the author name in base64 format there’s a trick of finding out a string is base64 or not if that is base 64 the `=` will be of power of 2 there can be `0` `1` `2` or `4` also there can be `#` nothing except that in the base64 format  
so now let’s try to decode this from base64

![](https://cdn.hashnode.com/res/hashnode/image/upload/v1765481238651/f6d00d7c-f6b6-4c98-95a5-706fee2901ba.png align="center")

  
gotcha