SANS Holiday Hack Challenge 2016

Part 5: Discombobulated Audio

I have all the auido files:

Server

(northpolewonderland.com)

File Name

File Size (Bytes)

MD5 Hash

analytics

discombobulatedaudio2.mp3

223248

f05c1ec6c536e455ec686973fa6b8e20

dungeon

discombobulatedaudio3.mp3

202362

0be15d00299af1a6bc1d11ab6f2696a0

dev

debug-20161224235959-0.mp3

218033

0a5ef5d7a0e89658a833d1892a9e1ec6

ads

discombobulatedaudio5.mp3

233357

3d87c1d31717f81f1966db4133f9e24d

ex

discombobulated-audio-6-XyzE3N9YqKNH.mp3

223244

4ee86b5b0eef9f8815ee7446272a6c06

analytics

discombobulatedaudio7.mp3

220943

313e7e370fd7d5232bb569f21856d9f4

I used Audicity on my Windows 10 laptop to apply filters and effects to the MP3 files.

At first I thought each file contained a word to form a sentence, but making changes on each file didn’t help, it wasn’t possible to understand them all like that.

My friend, who works with audio and video editing, suggested putting them together one after the other, and I decided since I have 7 files, each 7 seconds long to change the tempo to 1 second each for a total of 7 seconds.

7 files changed to 1 sec Tempo per file in order

When I played the result it said

“Father Christmas, Santa Claus. Or, as I’ve always known him, Jeff.”

Which is a quote from Doctor Who: A Christmas Carol (2010)

That whole sentence was the passphrase for the last door without a terminal where I found The Doctor who confessed kidnapping Santa to use he’s powers for a greater good, removing the existence of the Star Wars Holiday Special from 1978.

9) Who is the villain behind the nefarious plot.

The Doctor. (wrongly called Dr. Who, unless there’s a legal copyright/trademark issue)

To be more precise, the fourth incarnation of The Doctor from the BBC TV Show Doctor Who (the scarf gave it away J)

10) Why had the villain abducted Santa?

The Doctor did it because he’s a mad man with a box and was trying to use Santa’s powerful North Pole Wonderland Magick to prevent the Star Wars Holiday Special from being EVER released because he visited a universe where 1978 didn’t have the SWHS and everyone was happy! J

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