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hoffmandirt · May 8th, 2006, 10:49 AM

I need some help understanding what base64 is used for and how it is determined. I have been researching password encryption techniques and say for the salt example below, why is base64 used to generate the salt instead of ascii?

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public static System.String CreateSalt( System.Int32 size )
        {
            // Instantiate a cryptographic random number generator.
            System.Security.Cryptography.RNGCryptoServiceProvider rng =
                new System.Security.Cryptography.RNGCryptoServiceProvider();

            // Create an array to hold the randomly generated bytes.
            System.Byte[] randomBytes = new System.Byte[ size ];

            // Fill the array with randomly generated bytes.
            rng.GetBytes( randomBytes );

            // Return a Base64 string representation of the random number.
            return System.Convert.ToBase64String( randomBytes );
        }

May 8th, 2006, 10:49 AM	#1
hoffmandirt Hobbyist Programmer Join Date: Jul 2005 Location: PA Posts: 125 Rep Power: 4	ascii vs base64 encodings I need some help understanding what base64 is used for and how it is determined. I have been researching password encryption techniques and say for the salt example below, why is base64 used to generate the salt instead of ascii? (Toggle Plain Text) public static System.String CreateSalt( System.Int32 size ) { // Instantiate a cryptographic random number generator. System.Security.Cryptography.RNGCryptoServiceProvider rng = new System.Security.Cryptography.RNGCryptoServiceProvider(); // Create an array to hold the randomly generated bytes. System.Byte[] randomBytes = new System.Byte[ size ]; // Fill the array with randomly generated bytes. rng.GetBytes( randomBytes ); // Return a Base64 string representation of the random number. return System.Convert.ToBase64String( randomBytes ); } public static System.String CreateSalt( System.Int32 size ) { // Instantiate a cryptographic random number generator. System.Security.Cryptography.RNGCryptoServiceProvider rng = new System.Security.Cryptography.RNGCryptoServiceProvider(); // Create an array to hold the randomly generated bytes. System.Byte[] randomBytes = new System.Byte[ size ]; // Fill the array with randomly generated bytes. rng.GetBytes( randomBytes ); // Return a Base64 string representation of the random number. return System.Convert.ToBase64String( randomBytes ); }