Solutions: The Hex Factor v2009 (Level C100)

C-100 was the first of our reverse engineering challenges and since the main goal of THF09 was to provide everybody a challenge and a taste of what pwnage, reverse engineering, etc. really was, it was kept really simple.

the challenge consisted of a binary (re-100.exe) which was "password protected". If the correct password was entered, a code would be returned that you could use to claim your points on the THF scoreboard.
There were multiple ways to find out what the password was, including the well-known rubber hose technique, but the latter would've get you kicked out of the contest. By far the easiest one was running strings against the binary. The result would look a little something like this :

Aahh, the sweet sense of victory... Now get your behind out of that easy chair and come join us at BruCON (September, Brussels) or SANS London (December, London)