OverTheWire Bandit: Level 3 → Level 4

The Goal

The password is stored in a hidden file inside the inhere directory.

What I Did

Logged in as bandit3, confirmed the inhere directory and navigated into it:

bandit3@bandit:~$ ls
inhere
bandit3@bandit:~$ cd inhere
bandit3@bandit:~/inhere$ ls

ls returned nothing. The directory looked empty. I knew the file had to be there somewhere so I ran find:

bandit3@bandit:~/inhere$ find
.
./...Hiding-From-You

There it was. I tried cd into it out of habit, which failed as expected — it’s a file not a directory. Then read it the same way as the dashed filename from Level 1:

bandit3@bandit:~/inhere$ cat "./...Hiding-From-You"

That printed the password.

What Was Actually Happening

In Linux, any file or directory whose name starts with a . is hidden from ls by default. It’s a convention — not real security — designed to keep config files and system files out of the way so they don’t clutter your view. The file was always there. ls just wasn’t showing it.

There are two ways to see hidden files:

ls -a

The -a flag tells ls to show all files including hidden ones. This would have shown ...Hiding-From-You directly.

find works too — it searches recursively and lists everything it finds regardless of the dot convention. Running it with no arguments searches the current directory and prints every path including hidden files.

What I Was Confused About

I wasn’t sure what “hidden” actually meant in Linux. I assumed it might involve some kind of access restriction or encryption. It turned out to be much simpler — just a naming convention. A dot at the start of the filename is all it takes to hide something from a basic ls.

I also tried cd into the file again out of habit. Still doesn’t work. Files are files, directories are directories.

What I Learned

Hidden files start with . — this is how Linux stores config files like .bashrc and .ssh without cluttering your home directory view.

ls -a reveals everything — the -a flag stands for “all.” Always use it when you suspect hidden files.

find with no arguments lists all files recursively from the current directory, hidden or not. More powerful than ls for searching.

The ./ trick from Level 1 applies again — any filename with special characters at the start needs an explicit path so the shell doesn’t misinterpret it.

Commands Used

Command	What it did
ls	Showed nothing — hidden file not displayed
cd inhere	Navigated into the target directory
find	Listed all files including hidden ones
cat "./...Hiding-From-You"	Read the hidden file using explicit path