Happy Independence Day! [Ended! Thanks for participating!]

Hooray! The first solver. Now that wasn't so bad was it? :D

Good luck! Puzzle ends on Friday, 1 AM EST. I'll drop another hint later today.

That picture had another picture embedded in it that you had to extract out with 7-Zip. The picture hinted at that since Hatake Kakashi is known for his phrase "Look underneath the underneath".

The hidden picture after that had a giveaway code as the name.

From there, it led you to another picture, this time of the NSA logo.

The NSA logo was supposed to be a hint, that you needed to crack a code/cipher. Within the picture description, the code was given as well as a quote from Naruto, specifically "Those who break the rules are trash, those who abandon their comrades are worse than trash". That would have hinted at a connection with the Kakashi picture, since that's also one of his quotes.

Using both the code and the Declaration of Independence picture, you would get to the giveaway sequence, through the use of an Ottendorf cipher. The hint I gave was supposed to direct you to the movie National Treasure, where an Ottendorf Cipher was located on the back of the Declaration of Independence in the movie. Similarly, one can also interpret the hint directing them to the Beale Cipher, which although isn't the exact cipher I used, the Declaration of Independence was actually used as the key, just as it was here.

It was a rather famous phrase, I'm surprised so many people were stuck on it. My intention was for the itstoohard to be a quick distraction, to prevent you from looking deeper and go straight for what's given.

The answer was No Taxation Without Representation