← All writeups

Operation Viaje

May 2026 · OSINT UK CTF · 6 challenges

Mayor of Where? (5pts)

Task: Identify the name of the mayor of the place named in the attached photo.

Answer Format:

  • Use the osintuk{answer}
  • Replace any spaces with underscores.
    e.g. osintuk{John_Smith}

I started by opening the image and having a look at ‘Bangor’’. I can see the river line that it’s attached to. Searching for the town mostly points to a town in Wales, but a Google Maps check shows that the river lines don’t match.

Further searches for different ‘Bangor’s in the world shows a match with Bangor, Maine, USA. This is visible by the distinctive ‘hump’ in its river, shown just above North Brewer in the image below.

I searched for the mayor of Bangor and was prompted with Rick Fournier at first. This wasn’t correct, and shows why ‘trust but verify’ should remain a core tenet when looking at AI-generated output.

Repeated - and more specific - searches pointed to Susan Hawes. There’s conflicting information on the internet about this, and ceremonial mayor raised eyebrows. However, a quick test showed it to be the correct flag.

Flag: osintuk{Susan_Hawes}

Y’all Know Where This Is? (3pts)

Task: Name the building seen in the photo.

Answer Format:

  • Use the osintuk{answer}
  • Replace any spaces with underscores.
    e.g. osintuk{Kings_Gallery}

Using Google Lens on this immediately provided the answer.

Flag: osintuk{Renwick_Gallery}

On Fire (3pts)

Task: This photo shows a drinks machine outside the building. What brand did the machine shown in 2011?

Answer Format:

  • Use the osintuk{answer}
  • Replace any spaces with underscores.
    e.g. osintuk{Gatorade}

A closer look at the provided image shows readable text above the main door: it refers to DCFD - DC Fire Dept - Number 23. Searching for this on Google Maps takes us straight to the fire station in question.

Once found, it’s purely a case of using Google Street View and going back in time to 2011. This shows a Pepsi machine, and with it, the flag.

Flag: osintuk{Pepsi}

Street Art (4pts)

Task: This street artist has a website that used to use WordPress. What was their WordPress website “description”?

Answer Format:

  • Use the osintuk{answer}
  • Replace any spaces with underscores.
    e.g. osintuk{Art_of_the_Street}

Zooming in on the art piece, we can see a signature for ‘Chris Pyrate’. Google searches against the name confirmed it as the artist name through matching art style and signature.

Googling Chris Pyrate’s name found his Facebook page, which in turn listed his website - chrispyrate.com. This turned out to be a dead end, but here were my steps.

Although the chrispyrate.com URL is now dead, I ran it through the Wayback Machine to search for clues about where it was hosted. This showed Squarespace in the URL - not WordPress - suggesting I was on the wrong track.

Now back at the drawing board, I turned to more modern social media - his Instagram account, which itself came up during Google searches for his name.

Flicking through his posts, I found a second Instagram account of his - Chrispyrate_Tokyo. This page had a link to a new website - ‘chrispyrate.store’.

Wayback Machine searches on the store page show that it was archived in 2025. I went through this website and looked at the page source, and found that it was, indeed, hosted by Wordpress at that point in time.

After finding ‘Wordpress’ in the page source, I then searched for ‘description’. This led to quickly finding the flag: ‘Grow From Concrete’.

Flag: osintuk{Grow_From_Concrete}

Train Routes (3pts)

Starting at the Smithsonian Metro station, take the Silver line going east and get off at the first stop with a red line. Change to the red line towards Shady Grove and get off at the second stop.

Task: Follow the instructions above and identify the end destination.

Answer Format:

  • Use the osintuk{answer}
  • Replace any spaces with underscores.
    e.g. osintuk{Course_House}

This reminded me of the Google Maps challenge from Operation Gambler! Smithsonian is on the Silver Line of the Washington DC metro map. Following the directions (west rather than east) takes you to Dupont Circle.

Flag: osintuk{Dupont_Circle}

Flower Arrangement (4pts)

Task: The photo shows people getting flowers, but what is the approximate total quentity of flowers at the start of the event?

Answer Format:

  • Use the osintuk{answer} format.
  • Digits only, no punctuation.
    e.g. osintuk{1000}

This sounded intimidating, but the picture clearly shows a tulip-themed event happening. As the theme of this challenge series was Washington DC, searching for ‘tulips sale event Washington DC’ was sufficient to get the answer in the first result.

Flag: osintuk{150000}