Online Base64 Encoder

To the best of my knowledge regarding the security of JWT, if the JWT token doesn’t contain sensitive information, we only use its signature feature so that its content cannot be manipulated. Otherwise, if it contains sensitive data it can be encrypted to protect the data from sniffing. Also, both of them can be employed if needed.
However, what I cannot understand is that why the token is not a plain json? Why is it encoded while it can be easily decoded? Does it have a security reason or there is another reason behind that?
I searched the net and also took a quick look at RFC 7519 but I couldn’t find any clear and convincing answers.

I know I can translate any binary data into purely printable characters with Base64.encode64 and translate it back to binary data with Base64.decode64.

But is there any way to check if the data is translated into printable characters with Base64.encode64??

For instance, I'm looking for something like the code below.

str = Base64.encode("test")p str.encoded? #=> true

https://ruby-doc.org/stdlib-2.1.3/libdoc/base64/rdoc/Base64.html

Question

Are the Java 8 java.util.Base64 MIME Encoder and Decoder a drop-in replacement for the unsupported, internal Java API sun.misc.BASE64Encoder and sun.misc.BASE64Decoder?

What I think so far and why

Based on my investigation and quick tests (see code below) it should be a drop-in replacement because

• sun.misc.BASE64Encoder based on its JavaDoc is a BASE64 Character encoder as specified in RFC1521. This RFC is part of the MIME specification...
• java.util.Base64 based on its JavaDoc Uses the "The Base64 Alphabet" as specified in Table 1 of RFC 2045 for encoding and decoding operation... under MIME

Assuming no significant changes in the RFC 1521 and 2045 (I could not find any) and based on my quick test using the Java 8 Base64 MIME Encoder/Decoder should be fine.

What I am looking for

• an authoritative source confirming or disproving the "drop-in replacement" point OR
• a counterexample which shows a case where java.util.Base64 has different behaviour than the sun.misc.BASE64Encoder OpenJDK Java 8 implementation (8u40-b25) (BASE64Decoder) OR
• whatever you think answers above question definitely

For reference

My test code

public class Base64EncodingDecodingRoundTripTest {    public static void main(String[] args) throws IOException {        String test1 = " ~!@#$%^& *()_+=`| }{[]\\;: \"?><,./ ";        String test2 = test1 + test1;        encodeDecode(test1);        encodeDecode(test2);    }    static void encodeDecode(final String testInputString) throws IOException {        sun.misc.BASE64Encoder unsupportedEncoder = new sun.misc.BASE64Encoder();        sun.misc.BASE64Decoder unsupportedDecoder = new sun.misc.BASE64Decoder();        Base64.Encoder mimeEncoder = java.util.Base64.getMimeEncoder();        Base64.Decoder mimeDecoder = java.util.Base64.getMimeDecoder();        String sunEncoded = unsupportedEncoder.encode(testInputString.getBytes());        System.out.println("sun.misc encoded: " + sunEncoded);        String mimeEncoded = mimeEncoder.encodeToString(testInputString.getBytes());        System.out.println("Java 8 Base64 MIME encoded: " + mimeEncoded);        byte[] mimeDecoded = mimeDecoder.decode(sunEncoded);        String mimeDecodedString = new String(mimeDecoded, Charset.forName("UTF-8"));        byte[] sunDecoded = unsupportedDecoder.decodeBuffer(mimeEncoded); // throws IOException        String sunDecodedString = new String(sunDecoded, Charset.forName("UTF-8"));        System.out.println(String.format("sun.misc decoded: %s | Java 8 Base64 decoded:  %s", sunDecodedString, mimeDecodedString));        System.out.println("Decoded results are both equal: " + Objects.equals(sunDecodedString, mimeDecodedString));        System.out.println("Mime decoded result is equal to test input string: " + Objects.equals(testInputString, mimeDecodedString));        System.out.println("\n");    }}

I am trying to encode and decode a String using android.util.Base64, but it gives a bad base-64 error.

The code with the problem is:

private byte[] base64ToByte(String str) throws IOException {    Log.i("encription", str);    byte[] returnbyteArray = Base64.decode(str, Base64.URL_SAFE);    return returnbyteArray;}

The error logcat is:

08-09 13:02:18.589: E/AndroidRuntime(29827): Process: com.example.maptest, PID: 2982708-09 13:02:18.589: E/AndroidRuntime(29827): java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: bad base-6408-09 13:02:18.589: E/AndroidRuntime(29827):    at android.util.Base64.decode(Base64.java:161)08-09 13:02:18.589: E/AndroidRuntime(29827):    at android.util.Base64.decode(Base64.java:136)08-09 13:02:18.589: E/AndroidRuntime(29827):    at android.util.Base64.decode(Base64.java:118)08-09 13:02:18.589: E/AndroidRuntime(29827):    at com.example.maptest.security.Encription.base64ToByte(Encription.java:116)08-09 13:02:18.589: E/AndroidRuntime(29827):    at com.example.maptest.security.Encription.encode(Encription.java:103)08-09 13:02:18.589: E/AndroidRuntime(29827):    at android.os.Handler.dispatchMessage(Handler.java:102)08-09 13:02:18.589: E/AndroidRuntime(29827):    at android.os.Looper.loop(Looper.java:136)08-09 13:02:18.589: E/AndroidRuntime(29827):    at android.app.ActivityThread.main(ActivityThread.java:5081)08-09 13:02:18.589: E/AndroidRuntime(29827):    at java.lang.reflect.Method.invokeNative(Native Method)08-09 13:02:18.589: E/AndroidRuntime(29827):    at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:515)08-09 13:02:18.589: E/AndroidRuntime(29827):    at com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit$MethodAndArgsCaller.run(ZygoteInit.java:781)08-09 13:02:18.589: E/AndroidRuntime(29827):    at com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit.main(ZygoteInit.java:597)08-09 13:02:18.589: E/AndroidRuntime(29827):    at dalvik.system.NativeStart.main(Native Method)

The input(the str String from the code) looks like this:

08-09 13:02:18.539: I/encription(29827): 26.919047981500626

It is a double converted to a string, using:

String.valueOf(number)

The error is persistent with all encoding flags (DEFAULT, NO_WRAP, etc), any help would be apreciated, thank you.

I use Ward's AutoIt Machine Code Algorithm Collection to get base64 encoding of a string in AutoIt:

#Include "Base64.au3"Dim $Encode = _Base64Encode("ps")MsgBox(0, 'Base64 Encode Data', $Encode)

The result:

cHM=

PowerShell code to get the base64 encoding of the same string "ps":

$commands = 'ps'$bytes = [System.Text.Encoding]::Unicode.GetBytes($commands)$encodedString = [Convert]::ToBase64String($bytes)$encodedString

What I got is:

cABzAA==

The result from PowerShell is what I want. How to get the same result using AutoIt? I guess this is a character encoding issue.