How do I detect what my string is encoded or encrypted with?

3 points by bloqs 5y ago ↗ HN

Hey HN. Ive been trying to dig up some old crypto and have come across a problem I assume would have some sort of solution but doesn't seem to.

I have discovered a string on an old hard drive of mine that I'm certain relates to a crypto key/wallet of mine. However, after establishing its encoded or encryped I cant seem to find a tool that can give me any hints as to how. I was hoping to find a bip recovery mnemonic for an old blockchain.info wallet or similar.

The string is 88 chars long. Starts with AQAA and is a random assortment of upper, lower and numbers. There is a slash at position 81 and the last character is an asterisk. A tool I found says It's shannon entropy is reported at 4.90 and its apparently UTF-8 valid so that means it's likely not encrypted?

The slash made me think it was base64 but no dice. Any idea if theres a tool that can help identify some clues? Thanks!

2 comments

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ignoranceprior 5y ago ↗

If you remember what tool you used to generate or access the wallet, maybe that would help?

Maybe it's something related to Base58 format, which seems to be common for bitcoin keys? If it's Base58, then it should not contain the characters 0, O, 1, or I.

pestatije 5y ago ↗

Can you give more context? Like file name, directory, what other files are there, timestamp, ...

Being UTF-8 valid could be to make it copy-paste-able, but doesn't mean you can decode it in any meaningful way. Imagine it was base64 and you decode it, the resulting binary blob would leave you with the same problem.