title: Is this string Base64? How can I tell what is the encoding used?
body: <p>This is a puzzle to me and I am really annoyed that I cannot solve it! So, if anyone has some free time I would like to here some suggestions on how to solve it!</p>
  
  <p>I use a software that stores the password in an oracle database. The password field is of type Varchar2(100 char). It seems to me that the software encodes the passwords and stores the encoded string in the database.</p>
  
  <p>My password is '1234' and the encoded string is 'cRDtpNCeBiql5KOQsKVyrA0sAiA='. All the passwords in the database are 28 characters long.</p>
  
  <p>The puzzle that I have assigned to myself is to find the encoding and/or encryption of the string. My first check was on Base64 </p>
  
  <p>So here is my first test in python (idle):</p>
  
  <pre><code>&gt;&gt;&gt; import base64
  &gt;&gt;&gt; encoded = 'cRDtpNCeBiql5KOQsKVyrA0sAiA='
  &gt;&gt;&gt; decoded = base64.b64decode(encoded)
  &gt;&gt;&gt; decoded
  'q\x10\xed\xa4\xd0\x9e\x06*\xa5\xe4\xa3\x90\xb0\xa5r\xac\r,\x02 '
  &gt;&gt;&gt; print decoded
  qíﾤО*ﾥ䣐ﾰﾥrﾬ
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>, </p>
  
  <p>Here is my second test:</p>
  
  <pre><code>&gt;&gt;&gt; myString = '1234'
  &gt;&gt;&gt; encoded = base64.b64encode(myString)
  &gt;&gt;&gt; encoded
  'MTIzNA=='
  &gt;&gt;&gt; decoded = base64.b64decode('MTIzNA==')
  &gt;&gt;&gt; decoded
  '1234'
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>So, my first thought is that this is not Base64 encoded. After I checked wikipedia (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Base64" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Base64</a>) it seems that Base64 encoded strings are not of fixed size. My second thought is that the string was encrypted and then encoded into Base64 and that is why I get the weird-looking decoded string.</p>
  
  <p>Any ideas?</p>