What is base 64 encoding used for?

Question

I've heard people talking about "base 64 encoding" here and there. What is it used for?

Answer 1

When you have some binary data that you want to ship across a network, you generally don't do it by just streaming the bits and bytes over the wire in a raw format. Why? because some media are made for streaming text. You never know -- some protocols may interpret your binary data as control characters (like a modem), or your binary data could be screwed up because the underlying protocol might think that you've entered a special character combination (like how FTP translates line endings).

So to get around this, people encode the binary data into characters. Base64 is one of these types of encodings.

Why 64?
Because you can generally rely on the same 64 characters being present in many character sets, and you can be reasonably confident that your data's going to end up on the other side of the wire uncorrupted.

Answer 2

It's basically a way of encoding arbitrary binary data in ASCII text. It takes 4 characters per 3 bytes of data, plus potentially a bit of padding at the end.

Essentially each 6 bits of the input is encoded in a 64-character alphabet. The "standard" alphabet uses A-Z, a-z, 0-9 and + and /, with = as a padding character. There are URL-safe variants.

Wikipedia is a reasonably good source of more information.

Answer 3

Base-64 encoding is a way of taking binary data and turning it into text so that it's more easily transmitted in things like e-mail and HTML form data.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Base64

Answer 4

It's a textual encoding of binary data where the resultant text has nothing but letters, numbers and the symbols "+", "/" and "=". It's a convenient way to store/transmit binary data over media that is specifically used for textual data.

But why Base-64? The two alternatives for converting binary data into text that immediately spring to mind are:

1. Decimal: store the decimal value of each byte as three numbers: 045 112 101 037 etc. where each byte is represented by 3 bytes. The data bloats three-fold.
2. Hexadecimal: store the bytes as hex pairs: AC 47 0D 1A etc. where each byte is represented by 2 bytes. The data bloats two-fold.

Base-64 maps 3 bytes (8 x 3 = 24 bits) in 4 characters that span 6-bits (6 x 4 = 24 bits). The result looks something like "TWFuIGlzIGRpc3Rpb...". Therefore the bloating is only a mere 4/3 = 1.3333333 times the original.

Answer 5

Years ago, when mailing functionality was introduced, so that was utterly text based, as the time passed, need for attachments like image and media (audio,video etc) came into existence. When these attachments are sent over internet (which is basically in the form of binary data), the probability of binary data getting corrupt is high in its raw form. So, to tackle this problem BASE64 came along.

The problem with binary data is that it contains null characters which in some languages like C,C++ represent end of character string so sending binary data in raw form containing NULL bytes will stop a file from being fully read and lead in a corrupt data.

For Example :

In C and C++, this "null" character shows the end of a string. So "HELLO" is stored like this:

H E L L O

72 69 76 76 79 00

The 00 says "stop here".

Now let’s dive into how BASE64 encoding works.

Point to be noted : Length of the string should be in multiple of 3.

Example 1 :

String to be encoded : “ace”, Length=3

1) Convert each character to decimal.

a= 97, c= 99, e= 101

2) Change each decimal to 8-bit binary representation.

97= 01100001, 99= 01100011, 101= 01100101

Combined : 01100001 01100011 01100101

3) Seperate in a group of 6-bit.

011000 010110 001101 100101

4) Calculate binary to decimal

011000= 24, 010110= 22, 001101= 13, 100101= 37

5) Covert decimal characters to base64 using base64 chart.

24= Y, 22= W, 13= N, 37= l

“ace” => “YWNl”

Example 2 :

String to be encoded : “abcd” Length=4, it's not multiple of 3. So to make string length multiple of 3 , we must add 2 bit padding to make length= 6. Padding bit is represented by “=” sign.

Point to be noted : One padding bit equals two zeroes 00 so two padding bit equals four zeroes 0000.

So lets start the process :–

1) Convert each character to decimal.

a= 97, b= 98, c= 99, d= 100

2) Change each decimal to 8-bit binary representation.

97= 01100001, 98= 01100010, 99= 01100011, 100= 01100100

3) Separate in a group of 6-bit.

011000, 010110, 001001, 100011, 011001, 00

so the last 6-bit is not complete so we insert two padding bit which equals four zeroes “0000”.

011000, 010110, 001001, 100011, 011001, 000000 ==

Now, it is equal. Two equals sign at the end show that 4 zeroes were added (helps in decoding).

4) Calculate binary to decimal.

011000= 24, 010110= 22, 001001= 9, 100011= 35, 011001= 25, 000000=0 ==

5) Covert decimal characters to base64 using base64 chart.

24= Y, 22= W, 9= j, 35= j, 25= Z, 0= A ==

“abcd” => “YWJjZA==”

Answer 6

Aside from what's already been said, two very common uses that have not been listed are

Hashes:

Hashes are one-way functions that transform a block of bytes into another block of bytes of a fixed size such as 128bit or 256bit (SHA/MD5). Converting the resulting bytes into Base64 makes it much easier to display the hash especially when you are comparing a checksum for integrity. Hashes are so often seen in Base64 that many people mistake Base64 itself as a hash.

Cryptography:

Since an encryption key does not have to be text but raw bytes it is sometimes necessary to store it in a file or database, which Base64 comes in handy for. Same with the resulting encrypted bytes.

Note that although Base64 is often used in cryptography is not a security mechanism. Anyone can convert the Base64 string back to its original bytes, so it should not be used as a means for protecting data, only as a format to display or store raw bytes more easily.

Certificates

x509 certificates in PEM format are base 64 encoded. http://how2ssl.com/articles/working_with_pem_files/

Answer 7

In the early days of computers, when telephone line inter-system communication was not particularly reliable, a quick & dirty method of verifying data integrity was used: "bit parity". In this method, every byte transmitted would have 7-bits of data, and the 8th would be 1 or 0, to force the total number of 1 bits in the byte to be even.

Hence 0x01 would be transmited as 0x81; 0x02 would be 0x82; 0x03 would remain 0x03 etc.

To further this system, when the ASCII character set was defined, only 00-7F were assigned characters. (Still today, all characters set in the range 80-FF are non-standard)

Many routers of the day put the parity check and byte translation into hardware, forcing the computers attached to them to deal strictly with 7-bit data. This force email attachments (and all other data, which is why HTTP & SMTP protocols are text-based), to be convert into a text-only format.

Few of the routers survived into the 90s. I severely doubt any of them are in use today.

Answer 8

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Base64

The term Base64 refers to a specific MIME content transfer encoding. It is also used as a generic term for any similar encoding scheme that encodes binary data by treating it numerically and translating it into a base 64 representation. The particular choice of base is due to the history of character set encoding: one can choose a set of 64 characters that is both part of the subset common to most encodings, and also printable. This combination leaves the data unlikely to be modified in transit through systems, such as email, which were traditionally not 8-bit clean.

Base64 can be used in a variety of contexts:

• Evolution and Thunderbird use Base64 to obfuscate e-mail passwords[1]
• Base64 can be used to transmit and store text that might otherwise cause delimiter collision

• Base64 is often used as a quick but insecure shortcut to obscure secrets without incurring the overhead of cryptographic key management

• Spammers use Base64 to evade basic anti-spamming tools, which often do not decode Base64 and therefore cannot detect keywords in encoded messages.

• Base64 is used to encode character strings in LDIF files
• Base64 is sometimes used to embed binary data in an XML file, using a syntax similar to ...... e.g. Firefox's bookmarks.html.
• Base64 is also used when communicating with government Fiscal Signature printing devices (usually, over serial or parallel ports) to minimize the delay when transferring receipt characters for signing.
• Base64 is used to encode binary files such as images within scripts, to avoid depending on external files.
• Can be used to embed raw image data into a CSS property such as background-image.

Answer 9

Some transportation protocols only allow alphanumerical characters to be transmitted. Just imagine a situation where control characters are used to trigger special actions and/or that only supports a limited bit width per character. Base64 transforms any input into an encoding that only uses alphanumeric characters, +, / and the = as a padding character.

Answer 10

The usage of Base64 I'm going to describe here is somewhat a hack. So if you don't like hacks, please do not go on.

I went into trouble when I discovered that MySQL's utf8 does not support 4-byte unicode characters since it uses a 3-byte version of utf8. So what I did to support full 4-byte unicode over MySQL's utf8? Well, base64 encode strings when storing into the database and base64 decode when retrieving.

Since base64 encoding and decoding is very fast, the above worked perfectly.

You have the following points to take note of:

• Base64 encoding uses 33% more storage

• Strings stored in the database wont be human readable (You could sell that as a feature that database strings use a basic form of encryption).

You could use the above method for any storage engine that does not support unicode.

Answer 11

“Base64 encoding schemes are commonly used when there is a need to encode binary data that needs be stored and transferred over media that are designed to deal with textual data. This is to ensure that the data remains intact without modification during transport”(Wiki, 2017)

Example could be the following: you have a web service that accept only ASCII chars. You want to save and then transfer user’s data to some other location (API) but recipient want receive untouched data. Base64 is for that. . . The only downside is that base64 encoding will require around 33% more space than regular strings.

Another Example:: uenc = url encoded = aHR0cDovL2xvYy5tYWdlbnRvLmNvbS9hc2ljcy1tZW4tcy1nZWwta2F5YW5vLXhpaS5odG1s = http://loc.querytip.com/asics-men-s-gel-kayano-xii.html.

As you can see we can’t put char “/” in URL if we want to send last visited URL as parameter because we would break attribute/value rule for “MOD rewrite” – GET parameter.

A full example would be: “http://loc.querytip.com/checkout/cart/add/uenc/http://loc.magento.com/asics-men-s-gel-kayano-xii.html/product/93/”

Answer 12

It's used for converting arbitrary binary data to ASCII text.

For example, e-mail attachments are sent this way.

Answer 13

I use it in a practical sense when we transfer large binary objects (images) via web services. So when I am testing a C# web service using a python script, the binary object can be recreated with a little magic.

[In python]

import base64
imageAsBytes = base64.b64decode( dataFromWS )

Answer 14

Mostly, I've seen it used to encode binary data in contexts that can only handle ascii - or a simple - character sets.

Answer 15

To expand a bit on what Brad is saying: many transport mechanisms for email and Usenet and other ways of moving data are not "8 bit clean", which means that characters outside the standard ascii character set might be mangled in transit - for instance, 0x0D might be seen as a carriage return, and turned into a carriage return and line feed. Base 64 maps all the binary characters into several standard ascii letters and numbers and punctuation so they won't be mangled this way.

Answer 16

Base64

Base64 is a generic term for a number of similar encoding schemes that encode binary data by treating it numerically and translating it into a base 64 representation. The Base64 term originates from a specific MIME content transfer encoding.

Base64 encoding schemes are commonly used when there is a need to encode binary data that needs be stored and transferred over media that are designed to deal with textual data. This is to ensure that the data remains intact without modification during transport. Base64 is used commonly in a number of applications including email via MIME, and storing complex data in XML.

Answer 17

One hexadecimal digit is of one nibble (4 bits). Two nibbles make 8 bits which are also called 1 byte.

MD5 generates a 128-bit output which is represented using a sequence of 32 hexadecimal digits, which in turn are 32*4=128 bits. 128 bits make 16 bytes (since 1 byte is 8 bits).

Each Base64 character encodes 6 bits (except the last non-pad character which can encode 2, 4 or 6 bits; and final pad characters, if any). Therefore, per Base64 encoding, a 128-bit hash requires at least ⌈128/6⌉ = 22 characters, plus pad if any.

Using base64, we can produce the encoded output of our desired length (6, 8, or 10). If we choose to decide 8 char long output, it occupies only 8 bytes whereas it was occupying 16 bytes for 128-bit hash output.

So, in addition to security, base64 encoding is also used to reduce the space consumed.

Answer 18

Base64 can be used for many purposes.

The primary reason is to convert binary data to something passable.

I sometimes use it to pass JSON data around from one site to another, store information in cookies about a user.

Note: You "can" use it for encryption - I don't see why people say you can't, and that it's not encryption, although it would be easily breakable and is frowned upon. Encryption means nothing more than converting one string of data to another string of data that can be either later decrypted or not, and that's what base64 does.