Base 64 encoding in HTTP Basic Auth
base64, http, http-headers
Solution
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_access_authentication
Security is not the intent of the encoding step. Rather, the intent of the encoding is to encode non-HTTP-compatible characters that may be in the user name or password into those that are HTTP-compatible.
Problem
I am wondering what is the purpose of encoding the String: "login:password" in base 64 when using HTTP Basic Auth. - Base 64 is usually used to send binary data through ASCII only protocols. But the login:password is already a String - It adds practically no security - The output is longer than the input, so it does not improve performances I am probably missing something since it does currently seems to me that this encoding just adds an unneeded layer of complexity. Thank you