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Ask HN: Anyone ever scan the barcode on an airline boarding pass?

9 points by mattew ↗ HN
I just got a 2d scanner for work and noticed that the SW boarding passes have 2d PDF417 barcodes on them. I scanned it and found 197 characters of data. Some of it is self explanatory (my name, confirmation numbers, destinations, etc). Here it is:

M1TESSAR/MATTHEW D EQR2L8Q DENLAXWN 1420 180T017A0017 125>30B0WW0179BWN 0E 0T0101L^460MEQCIC4E6a7 GJNwAfTHnyxgY3VQdsPORVOuPZifjf51WrzqAiA3Zp59 Vw5M1YOUc4snjSh86yeyVK0LxthZdoZBBT/2A==

It seems to get more interesting as the string goes on. Anyone have any ideas on the encoded data?

5 comments

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cperciva
Anyone have any ideas on the encoded data?

The final == is a clear sign that you're looking at base64-encoded data; but after decoding it just looks like noise to me. Maybe there's a cryptographic signature in there somewhere? I think you'd need to compare multiple boarding passes to learn anything.

mattew
Yeah, I decoded the two final words and came to the same conclusion as you. I will check out my next few boarding passes and see if any patterns emerge.
jaxn
I would imagine that is the part that prevents forgery.