What is this, can you decode??

[MaxWade]

Hi, I have a list of numbers/letters here that I was wanting to know how to decode them. If anyone could do this or led me in the right direction to getting it decode it would be much of help. Thanks.
H7mAfenIOqHCgIGxeKPmNB+5gH3pyDqhwoCBsXij5jQ=

[Kodo]

well, it's not HEX, because HEX only goes from 0-9-A-F and there are characters out of range in that string.

[Vlad902]

Yeah, and it doesn't look like a hash, so most likely it is encyrpted, we don't know the type or length of string or anything so can't help

[datagrok]

That string smells to me like Base64 as defined in RFC 1521 (http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc1521.txt), section 5.2. The reasons I suspect so are:

The string ends in '=', the padding character for Base64 encoding.
The string contains no characters outside of that used for base64 encoding: [0-9A-Za-z+/=]

However, if I am correct, you still have a problem: decoding the string produces binary data:
[mike@naomi mike]$ python
>>> import base64
>>> base64.decodestring("H7mAfenIOqHCgIGxeKPmNB+5gH3pyDqhwoCBsXij5jQ=")
'\x1f\xb9\x80}\xe9\xc8:\xa1\xc2\x80\x81\xb1x\xa3\xe64\x1f\xb9\x80}\xe9\xc8:\xa1\xc2\x80\x81\xb1x\xa3\xe64'

A hexdump is easier to read:

[mike@naomi mike]$ hexdump -v test.txt
0000000 b91f 7d80 c8e9 a13a 80c2 b181 a378 34e6
0000010 b91f 7d80 c8e9 a13a 80c2 b181 a378 34e6
0000020
.
I suspect that what you have there is actually only the last line from a mime-encoded binary file. You may want to investigate the fact that your data is two identical sets of 16 bytes.

[Vlad902]

Originally posted by datagrok
That string smells to me like Base64 as defined in RFC 1521 (http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc1521.txt), section 5.2. The reasons I suspect so are:

The string ends in '=', the padding character for Base64 encoding.
The string contains no characters outside of that used for base64 encoding: [0-9A-Za-z+/=]

DoH! Yeah, you're completely right there, except the RFC, I don't know about that one, reading IRC gives me nose bleeds...

However, if I am correct, you still have a problem: decoding the string produces binary data:
[mike@naomi mike]$ python
>>> import base64
>>> base64.decodestring("H7mAfenIOqHCgIGxeKPmNB+5gH3pyDqhwoCBsXij5jQ=")
'\x1f\xb9\x80}\xe9\xc8:\xa1\xc2\x80\x81\xb1x\xa3\xe64\x1f\xb9\x80}\xe9\xc8:\xa1\xc2\x80\x81\xb1x\xa3\xe64'

A hexdump is easier to read:

[mike@naomi mike]$ hexdump -v test.txt
0000000 b91f 7d80 c8e9 a13a 80c2 b181 a378 34e6
0000010 b91f 7d80 c8e9 a13a 80c2 b181 a378 34e6
0000020
.
I suspect that what you have there is actually only the last line from a mime-encoded binary file. You may want to investigate the fact that your data is two identical sets of 16 bytes.

Werd, I only use python if I need to do math :D eg:

[vlad@core-dump]$ python
>>> (9*72)+84
732


But nice work, I'm turning red in the face because I didn't notice the ending in "=" clue :o

[MaxWade]

I am wanting to say that the first the letters are JLD but the four following letters i couldnt remember for some reason. I am not totally sure about the second letter, but the first and third i know are correct. I need the last four digits to complete this??? HELP?

[datagrok]

Originally posted by MaxWade
I am wanting to say that the first the letters are JLD but the four following letters i couldnt remember for some reason. I am not totally sure about the second letter, but the first and third i know are correct. I need the last four digits to complete this??? HELP?

You're saying that you already know part of the source for this "encoded" string? And you know that the source for the encoded string is exactly seven characters long? Is there anything else that you know about the source? Are all the characters uppercase ASCII alphanumerics as well?

I might be able to help you out more if you describe in detail exactly where you found this encoded string, what the source of the string is for, what program or process was used to encode it, and whether or not it is actually encrypted. If we're dealing with a hash (fingerprint) of a seven-character string it's not possible to guarantee the recovery the original string... but if you know the hash function, you may be able to come up with a sequence of arbitrary bytes that results in the same hash.

What research online have you done into solving this problem already?

[MaxWade]

None of the characters are going to be in uppercase all lower, and as I stated in my last post, I do believe it ends in four numbers. I am wanting to think it was a date maybe. Everything I can think of doesnt work though. Only research I have done is looking into different languages trying to see if there was anything that half way matched the way this string looked. The password is going to be for my aim program. Nothing big, but something I would like to access from another place.

[Vlad902]

When you're loging on just sniff your packets, I doubt your password will be sent encrypted.