N Number

Part 1 - The Number

Unfortunately for you, the address is encrypted with a secret number that you must find. The secret is the largest integer N with the properties:

All digits of N are distinct. The product of all of N’s neighboring digits is also a part of N.

For example, 241836 verifies these two requirements (but it is not the largest one!) Indeed: 2x4=8, 4x1=4, 1x8=8, 8x3=24, 3x6=18.

Because its digits have to be distinct this number can’t possibly be greater than 10 digits. As we’re interested in the greatest such number the search can be done in reverse order, starting at 9876543210 and going down until the first and greatest valid number is found.

The code to find the number is ridiculously bad - a sort of an inlined backtracking search that doesn’t use numbers at all but rather strings:

def find():
	digits = "9876543210"

	for a in digits:
		for b in digits:
			if b == a:
				continue
			for c in digits:
				if c == b or c == a:
					continue
				for d in digits:
					if d == c or d == b or d == a:
						continue
					for e in digits:
						if e == d or e == c or e == b or e == a:
							continue
						for f in digits:
							if f == e or f == d or f == c or f == b or f == a:
								continue
							for g in digits:
								if g == f or g == e or g == d or g == c or g == b or g == a:
									continue
								for h in digits:
									if h == g or h == f or h == e or h == d or h == c or h == b or h == a:
										continue
									for i in digits:
										if i == h or i == g or i == f or i == e or i == d or i == c or i == b or i == a:
											continue
										for j in digits:
											if j == h or j == g or j == f or j == e or j == d or j == c or j == b or j == a:
												continue
											n = a+b+c+d+e+f+g+h+i+j
											ok=1
											for p in range(9):
												if str(int(n[p]) * int(n[p+1])) not in n:
													ok=0
											if ok==1:
												return n

The desired number is 9872305614.

Part 2 - Deciphering the code

U2FsdGVkX1/9Mn5FmMWRvC7FYywB005oHQNClUQZ7pmUT2W7SqE2I00vhmGK/gZx

The decoded base64 string begins with Salted__ which means it is in the OpenSSL salted format. The code itself doesn’t contain any information about the cipher so we have to guess it. Luckily enough the first cipher listed by openssl enc -ciphers, namely aes-128-cbc is the correct one. The password was the base10 ascii representation of the number we found earlier.

$ echo U2FsdGVkX1/9Mn5FmMWRvC7FYywB005oHQNClUQZ7pmUT2W7SqE2I00vhmGK/gZx >ciphertext.b64 
$ base64 -d ciphertext.b64 > ciphertext 
$ openssl enc -aes-128-cbc -d -k 9872305614 -in ciphertext -out plaintext
$ cat plaintext
44▒25'42.0"N 26▒03'30.4"E

I’m not sure about the non-printable character (probably it’s the degree sign) but rewriting the decrypted coordinates to match the specified format ECSC{XX XX XX.XN XX XX XX.XE} results in the correct flag: ECSC{44 25 42.0N 26 03 30.4E}.