• File - file is your friend. It can help you determine what type of file something is. Which could be helpful for determining *cough* decodingtools *cough* stuff.
• apropos - It can help find the manual pages for some of the different tools that you will need to use. It might be worth paying attention to file names.
• tac (filename) is how you flip a file text vertically
• uudecode (filename) can decode a text file for you.
• base64 -d can also decode a text file.
• tar -xvf (filename) can be used to extract files from an archive.
• man — can be used to invoke the manual on a subject / command in case you do not already know what function the aforementioned command serves.
• rev - reverses the text in a .txt file to unscramble text.
• chmod - allows you to change permissions.
• sort -n allows you to sort a file numerically
• gzip -d to decompress
• basenc -d –base16 — can decode a message in base16

-At the start you can only access ascii.512

-For ascii.512, complete all of the steps to be able to unlock the rest of the assignment.

-Don't forget that file allows to see any extra information about the file.

File can be helpful for determining a file type and apropos for finding a particular command to use on such file types. Another thing to pay attention to is the actual names of the files.