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This Operation has concluded and is now closed for participation. See our most recent Operation in the Operation Category for the ongoing event.
“Welcome to my humble abode, Mr Kotova”
Hendrik opens the door to his house in the tiny German hamlet. The place he’s called home for many years now. The very place he joined the Ahemait online and does most of the work for the organization from.
“Very nice, but please call me Maksim. In Russia, we become friends after we get drunk together”
“Of course, Maksim. Speaking of drinks, let me get us some schnapps and explain our plans in more detail”
Hendrik opens a large wooden cabinet in the corner of the room. It’s filled with bottles of all kinds. He reaches for a fancy looking bottle of schnapps and gets two glasses to go with it. Filling both to the brim as he sits down in a leather chair and invites Maksim to take a seat as well. Both raise their glasses.
“To our future collaboration, prost!”
“Yes, to many years of good business and health. Na Zdorovie!”
The men both chug their glass in one go. Feeling the liquid courage glide down their throats as they exhale heavily. Hendrik wastes no time filling up again as Maksim begins to speak.
“So, besides saving me from the hand of the Tiberian Order, what am I doing here?”
“Yes, you see the annual Ahemait meeting is just around the corner. My superiors are planning to unveil all operations for the next year. However, the largest of these will require a substantial amount of small arms and various gasses. The small arms do not pose such a problem. However, we require some biological weapons as well. There are certain groups of people we want to eradicate a bit more efficiently.”
“I see, and these gasses. Do they have to kill nicely? And do they only need to affect airways?”
“Not at all, the more suffering and pain is induced on the sinners, the more clean their souls arrive in the afterlife. For some of them, the agony might be enough to redeem themselves.”
Maksim smiles as he downs another glass of schnapps.
“This should not be a problem. A train full of great materials can be moved next week already if needed. The stuff made in the Soviet Union never had to cater to those humane and sad Western standards.”
“Excellent. So, lets talk logistics and pricing….”
Briefing
Greetings, Special Agent K.
Excellent work on locating the residence of Hendrik Schneider. We’ve been in contact with local authorities and acquired a permission to wiretap the residency. Over the past several days we’ve had agents stationed around the area to observe all movements.
Several methods of intercepting communication were installed around the residence as well. Including a tap on the internet connection. Given the vast amounts of data we’ve recovered, all of this will need to be distributed among several teams for further analysis.
It has come to our attention that the Ahemait have a yearly conference. This event is always covered by some form of shell company or organization. Nothing is known of the location or time this event takes place. We hope though, that some of the intercepted data will give us more information about this event.
We’ve taken a part of the internet wiretap and assigned it to you. Please find out if it contains anything useful for finding the time and place for this conference.
As always, Special Agent K. Best of luck on this operation.
Epilogue
Agent Ben Wilder sat in his dark grey Volkswagen Golf in the small German town. Observing all movement going in and out of the Schneider residence. For a month the house had been under constant surveillance. Several camera’s, microphones, wiretaps and other technical measures had been taken to observe everything going on. Though two days ago, the strangest thing happened. The house fell completely silent, nothing was heard anymore. Even though they were certain that Maksim and Hendrik were still inside, they never came out at all.
Julia hadn’t observed anything and therefor sent in Ben, knowing it could blow their cover in such an environment. Small towns are notoriously hard for stakeouts, with their low density and nosy neighbors everywhere. Cities are far more convenient. Nonetheless, they needed answers.
Ben wasn’t observing anything for hours, he got on his comms and called for Julia.
“Jules it’s Ben, no movement the whole day. What do you want to do next?”
“Ben, do you have your thermal kit with you?”
“Yeah it’s in the back, will sure draw some attention when I pull that out.”
“Alright, it’s evening soon, try to find a spot when the neighborhood goes dark. I might be able to get the grid down for a while to create more darkness.”
Ben drove out of town for the rest of the day to get food, he’d be back after sundown with the thermals ready. Julia would cut the power to the neighborhood for a while, so he’d have some moments to check the house for thermal signals. Driving back into the neighborhood, everything was quiet and not a person was outside. Excellent.
“Jules you ready?”
“Yes, going dark in 3… 2… 1….”
“Excellent, activating thermals….. Holy shit, you won’t believe this.”
“What’s happening Ben? You got any bodies?”
“Nope, fucking nothing. Some radiators and appliances, but not a single person in that house”
“Where the fuck did they go? We have eyes on that place all the time.”
“Jules.. I got a hunch, but you’re not gonna like it. Remember where that other gas loving German with the mustache hid?”
“Enough with the Hitler jokes, Ben, what’s your point?”
“Not a joke, Julia. What if these nutjobs have a bunker under that place? Wouldn’t surprise me one bit”
“Fuck, Ben you might be right. I double checked the footage, absolutely nobody left. And if they would have killed themselves or each other, we would’ve heard something.”
“Exactly, we’re gonna have to find out way in there. Or keep this place under much longer surveillance in case they surface.”
“Going in would blow our operation, Ben. We got a proper Schrodinger’s cat here. They’re either in there or not, but might be true until we check and blow the operation.”
“Alright Jules, I’m gonna head out before the locals get spooked. Get the grid back online, I’ll go back to the hotel.”
“Alright Ben, I’ll confirm with the higher ups. For now, we’ll keep monitoring the place. We have no reason to believe they’ve left. You lay low and enjoy Germany.”
“Fucking A, Schnitzels and beer it is. Later Jules.”
Materials and Answer Instruction
Steps to complete:
1 – Figure out the answer to the Operation
2 – Construct the password using instruction below to unlock the “flagfile”
3 – Use the “answer code” from the “answerfile” inside the “flagfile” to submit your score via the form below
Password format:
hotelname-city-dd-mm-yyyy-hhmm
Password sample:
avari-hotel-karachi-15-03-2023-0900
Download the starting materials
Scoreboard: Operation Wiretap
| Submission Time | Agent Callsign |
|---|---|
| Mar 1, 2023 @ 10:31 AM | SilverBike [OZINT] |
| Mar 1, 2023 @ 10:31 AM | Tungst (OZINT) |
| Mar 1, 2023 @ 10:38 AM | Degun[OZINT] |
| Mar 1, 2023 @ 7:01 PM | souf6x |
| Mar 1, 2023 @ 7:15 PM | vizivod |
| Mar 3, 2023 @ 12:22 AM | matroyshka62 |
| Mar 4, 2023 @ 4:45 PM | LeRoux |
| Mar 4, 2023 @ 7:57 PM | Stray |
| Mar 5, 2023 @ 5:12 PM | vizer |
| Mar 30, 2023 @ 2:38 PM | Mercenary Rofell0s |
| Mar 30, 2023 @ 4:49 PM | Mercenary Mazeplay |
Write-ups: Operation Wiretap
| B0neShAd0w | https://github.com/B0neShAd0w/Hacktoria/blob/main/Operation:%20Wiretap.md |
| LeRoux | https://medium.com/the-sleuth-sheet/operation-wiretap-writeup-2e65ccc358e8 |
Submit your own write-ups via this page: https://hacktoria.com/submit-a-write-up/