Bandit 10 → 11

OverTheWire Linux Progressive

Goal: decode the base64 contents of data.txt.

Approach

bandit10@bandit

bandit10@bandit:~$ base64 -d data.txt
The password you are looking for is: <password>

PassworddtR173fZKb0RRsDFSGsg2RWnpNVj3qRrReveal

Why it works

Base64 is a transport encoding that maps arbitrary bytes onto a safe 64-character alphabet so they survive text-only channels. It carries no key, so any decoder reverses it. Encoding is not encryption.