[Ronan.]

Seasons Greetings

Preface:
I've always wanted to run an upgrade contest but I never liked the idea of doing so by means of RNG, if you want to get a free upgrade, prove that you have skills/knowledge to offer.

Intro:
With December swiftly approaching, Christmas sites are reemerging and deal collectives are taking advantage of the hype.
And yes, I'm looking at you too Mr.ICanMake$50kAMonthViaAmazonAffiliateLinksBecauseAnEBookSaidSo.

We received word that a few days ago, malicious hacker and Visual Basic mastermind, The Phisherman, has hacked Santa's directory containing the names and addresses of... well everyone.
Every file on the network has been encrypted and the only way to save Christmas is by getting the decryption key, conveniently hidden behind various challenges.
It is your mission, nay, your duty to protect the innocence of the world's youth and the rep of St.Nick.

Details:
There are a total of 12 steps to recovering the key.
Once you have completed the final step, post the final key in the thread and establish your technical prowess amongst your fellow crackers.
The prize is dependent on your current user status:
Normal -> L33t
(Ub3r approved) : L33t -> Ub3r ? L33t -> Ep1c
(!Ep1c) : Ub3r-> Ep1c ? Ub3r -> Gift Award
If you're an Ep1c Ub3r with a gift award, then you don't get any awards/upgrades.
Instead I'll make a thread describing my approval of your technical ability, pay for it to be stickied as well as hand-drawing your username/avatar, framing it and attaching a photo of it at the top of the thread.

Keep your progress updated here so I can gauge where people are getting stuck, if there is a lot of confusion on a single step, I'll drop some hints (See Hints).
The deadline is the 18th of December, in case nobody wins. In such an event, the winner will be whomever reached the furthest.

Terms:
By taking part in this challenge you are agreeing to the following terms:
You agree that 8 is a beautiful number.
I am not responsible for any injuries caused by your frustration.
I reserve the right to cancel my Netflix account at any time if I no longer find the content interesting.

If you have any questions feel free to PM me.
I'll also be giving $5 to a random person in the thread that has been engaged with the puzzle. This doesn't mean begging for answers.

BONUS:
This challenge isn't easy. I've been testing this out for a few weeks and I'm pretty happy with it's current state. I've re-created the entire puzzle with suggestions from a few friends/professionals.

It took an MIT graduate 2 days to crack this.*

That said, I don't doubt the ability of some of the incredibly talented people on here.

I'm offering an additional $50 reward for anyone that completes this challenge within 24 hours of this post. Tick tock.
Small change, every day the puzzle remains unsolved, the bonus will go down by $20. If we get to day 3 (bonus will be $10) the bonus will not be paid as part of the prize, but used to purchase a fiverr gig of my choice for you.

Current Bonus: $0 The bonus is 0 but I'm going to do the fiverr thing anyway.

*Original version of this was slightly different, though the general processes were the same.

Hints:
Due to the complexity of some of the later stages, I'm implementing a 'failsafe'.
If you are stumped on a step, keep trying, but before doing so, post the following here:

Hint Request
Stage: (Give the stage, 0-12)
What you've tried: (List anything you've tried so far)

This should not only give others experiencing the same problem a better idea of what you've attempted, but might indirectly provide help for those stuck on earlier pages.
If at least 3 people are stuck on the same step for 24 hours, I'll drop a hint.
Status:
Stage 1: Cracked
Stage 2: Cracked
Stage 3: Cracked
Stage 4: Cracked
Stage 5: Cracked
Stage 6: Cracked
Stage 7: Cracked
Stage 8: Cracked
Stage 9: Cracked
Stage 10: Cracked
Stage 11: Cracked
Stage 12: Cracked

This contest is now over, the answers to this are avaliable here: https://hackforums.net/showthread.php?tid=5490269 - Feel free to work through the thread yourself and check here in case you need a hand.

How do I start?
68 74 74 70 3a 2f 2f 70 61 73 74 65 62 69 6e 2e 63 6f 6d 2f 46 55 54 77 33 43 4c 61

[Sadistic]

Im confused already. Is there a puzzle or am i blind as Fuk

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Does it have something too do with your Signature?

[Ronan.]

Im confused already. Is there a puzzle or am i blind as Fuk

---

Does it have something too do with your Signature?

Look a little bit closer.

[veʟocιтy]

This is fun, I'm on stage 1 :D

[͏Dr ͏St͏e͏v͏e ͏Br͏u͏l͏e]

So am I missing an "I" or? A"I"NTABITCHHF? Or am I retarded?

[veʟocιтy]

Stage 2! Loving this so far.

[͏Dr ͏St͏e͏v͏e ͏Br͏u͏l͏e]

try do it again lol, i sorta did the same thing, youll realise straight away what you missed

Holy shit u right, i'm blind. god damn ole' saint nick.

[Stealth™]

Step 1: Highlight the text at the bottom of OP's post to get these hexadecimal values: 68 74 74 70 3a 2f 2f 70 61 73 74 65 62 69 6e 2e 63 6f 6d 2f 46 55 54 77 33 43 4c 61. Converting these to ASCII yields the following link: http://pastebin.com/FUTw3CLa

Step 2: After following the tinyurl link like an idiot, you realize that there has to be something else. Noticing that letters in some words are capitalized, just type every capitalized letter: SANTABITCHHF

Will update as I get closer.

[Sadistic]

I see. Interesting... Will work on this overnight and update w/ progress

[ProtectNull™]

I'm in the 4th stage now, I love puzzles like these.

---

Dammit, I'm stuck in the email part. I will find out what it is..

---

Stage: The email one
What you've tried: Trying to send it bash commands, that didn't work. lmao

[Ronan.]

Updated the thread with an option to request a hint.

[Biocides]

Hint Request
Stage: 5 or 6
What you've tried:
42 9 4
105 42 9 * 4

4294
422162
36288
158760

HEX

[Stealth™]

OP, why did you take away the $50 additional prize if it hasn't been 24 hours?

I'm stuck on the e-mail stage: [email protected]

[Ronan.]

OP, why did you take away the $50 additional prize if it hasn't been 24 hours?

I'm stuck on the e-mail stage: [email protected]

I'm re-writing the bonus section, the closest person that I know of is at stage 8 so I doubt anyone will break it tonight. I'm going to have a bonus that goes down each day 😁

[Linus Torvalds]

If you email the email it responds with this:

If you hover over the email address's avatar you'll see some text that represents a pastebin.

which is here: http://pastebin.com/sUzUPMeW
Me and my boi Ware over here 🤝