ARG Toolbox

This page will continue to be added to as new tools emerge.

This page is an index of helpful tools used to solve the puzzles typically found in ARGs, including ciphers, audio encoding, and steganography.

ARG Training

ae27ff

http://ae27ff.challenge.pt/

ae27ff is a series of 37 puzzles that use the typical techniques of most ARGs. They get more difficult the higher you go. Made by Discord user crashdemons.

ARGvent

http://gamedetectives.net/argvent/

A daily series of puzzles over advent, with varying difficulty. Created by the GameDetectives admins. Over for now, will possibly back next year.

Levels

http://levels.your-host.xyz/

A series of puzzles designed to introduce people to ARG solving. They range from easy to very hard. Levels can be gained through active participation on the official forum.

Watching You

https://stvjsmrs.wordpress.com/

Originally forming part of an ARG, the site now houses two series of puzzles - the originals, and a cancelled Advent version. Made by Discord users in Team Look In The Bushes.

Text-based Tools

Cyberchef

https://gchq.github.io/CyberChef/

Includes tools to decipher B64, MD5, and other reled hashes.

asciitohex

http://www.asciitohex.com/

Converts ASCII to hex and vice versa, as well as to other number-based encryption methods.

Rumkin

http://rumkin.com/tools/cipher/

Has tools to decipher many common encryption methods, including Caesar and Vigenere ciphers.

Cryptii

https://cryptii.com/text/select

An MIT site that decrypts many encryption methods, including Enigma and hex.

The Black Chamber

http://www.simonsingh.net/The_Black_Chamber/chamberguide.html

A compendium of different text-based ciphers.

md5hashing

https://md5hashing.net/hash_type_checker

Allows you to decode many variations of MD5 and Sha ciphers.

Xlate

http://otp22.com/xlate

A multibase data translator made by the creator of ae27ff, crashdemons.

Shift/XOR Report

http://otp22.com/xlate/shifts.html

Made by the creator of ae27ff, allows the visualization of all possible 256 byte shifts.

OtpXor

https://github.com/otp22/decoders/tree/master/OtpXor

Made by the creator of ae27ff, allows for the xoring of two large files together.

XorJ

https://github.com/crashdemons/XorJ

Made by the creator of ae27ff, allows for the xoring of two relatively small files together.

HTTP Referrer Extension

https://addons.mozilla.org/En-US/firefox/addon/refcontrol/

An extension for Firefox to help find HTTP referrers.

HxD

http://mh-nexus.de/en/hxd/

Hex editor/viewer. A very useful alternative to Notepad.

CryptoCrack

https://sites.google.com/site/cryptocrackprogram/

A cipher decryption program. However, it doesn't always work, so use at your own discretion.

Cheat Engine

http://www.cheatengine.org/index.php

While it is commonly used for cheating in games, it is a very helpful memory viewer and editor.

Enigma Machine Emulator

http://enigma.louisedade.co.uk/

A fully working emulator of the German Enigma encryption machine.

a2x2

https://a2x2.github.io/link/

A tool that will guess what site a link identifier could belong to given the length. Made by Discord user A4.

Caesar Cipher

http://www.dcode.fr/caesar-cipher

Tool used to solve rot-ciphers, is able to bruteforce.

Audio Analysis

DTMF Decoders

http://www.teworks.com/dtmf.htm

and

https://www.djsoft.net/smf/index.php?topic=3512.0

Allow for the decryption of Duel Tone Multi-Frequency audio files.

Fldigi

https://fedorahosted.org/fldigi/wiki

A program that can encrypt/decrypt many different kinds of audio encryption. However, it is not user friendly.

Audacity

http://www.audacityteam.org/

A free audio editing software. Can create spectrograms of audio.

RX-SSTV

http://users.belgacom.net/hamradio/rxsstv.htm

A program that deciphers SSTV encryption on audio tracks.

Sonic Visualizer

http://sonicvisualiser.org/

A free program used to create spectrograms. Generally considered to be better than Audacity when doing so.

WavePad FFT

http://www.nch.com.au/wavepad/fft.html

A program for analysing the spectral content of audio.

Image Analysis

Binvis.io

http://binvis.io/#/

A tool that gives a visual representation of binary files.

Jeffrey's Image Metadata Viewer

http://regex.info/exif.cgi

Allows you to view the metadata of images.

FotoForensics

http://fotoforensics.com/

Image metadata and Error Level Analysis.

RawPixels

http://rawpixels.net/

A website that visualizes .raw files.

Jhead

http://mirror.otp22.com/jhead

Hosted by the creator of ae27ff; allows for the viewing of jpeg headers, abnormalities, and outgress output.

FutureBoy

http://futureboy.us/stegano/

Allows to compare the differences of two images, and unlock steganography with passwords.

GIMP

https://www.gimp.org/

A free photo editor. A great alternative to Photoshop.

Tinkercad

https://www.tinkercad.com/

A web-based 3D-modeling program.