Overview
You land on a page that says: “You can find the password for the next level on this page.”
Nothing is visibly shown — but that statement is literally true. The password exists somewhere in what the server sent back. The browser renders HTML visually, but there’s always more to a page than what appears on screen.
Hints
Hint 1 — What else is in a web page?
Hint 1 — What else is in a web page?
Browsers parse HTML and render the visible parts. But HTML can contain elements that are never displayed — comments, hidden elements, metadata. Is there anything in this page’s source that the browser isn’t showing you?
Hint 2 — How do you see the raw source?
Hint 2 — How do you see the raw source?
Every browser lets you view the raw HTML sent by the server. Try pressing
Ctrl+U or looking in the browser’s View menu. Search the source for the word “password”.Solution
Full walkthrough
Full walkthrough
1
View the page source
Press
Ctrl+U to open the raw HTML source in a new tab.2
Find the HTML comment
Inside
<div id="content">, there is an HTML comment that is never rendered by the browser: