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We are working on exporting a bunch of data from a 3rd party system and bringing it into our own. The only good way to do this is to use the SQL database. We have had a good amount of success finding everything we need to extract, but one particular item seems to be encoded somehow, but we can't figure out what algorithm it uses so that we can reverse engineer the plain text string that the user entered to the corresponding field in the user interface. This field is just a description field, it is not sensitive data and we don't believe it's encrypted.

Here are a few examples of what we type in the interface and the values that end up in the database. The goal is to find the algorithm used, so that for each of the encoded strings below, we can decode to get the plain text string.

I can try with any other provided strings if it will help.

The strings always encode to the same values in the database even from other servers/users/environments

Examples:

Plain Text: Matt's description

Encoded: 13 36%T="=S(&1E

Plain Text: plain text string 12321**\2">"?

Encoded: 20 <&QA:6X@=&5X="!S=')I;F<@,3(S,C$J*EPR(CXB/P

Plain Text: a

Encoded: 2 80

Plain Text: 1

Encoded: 2 ,0

Matt0
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  • I don't think you have enough information to make such a determination. – Xedni Jun 18 '18 at 16:20
  • Do the same strings always encode to the same values? – iamdave Jun 18 '18 at 16:21
  • If you would provide a recommendation for what information you would like to see I can include it, otherwise this answer is not helpful. – Matt0 Jun 18 '18 at 16:22
  • @iamdave yes they do – Matt0 Jun 18 '18 at 16:22
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    I don't know what info would be helpful; it looks like gibberish to me. Can you ask the third party vendor? seems like they should be able to furnish that info. – Xedni Jun 18 '18 at 16:29
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    Can you not just inquire with the 3rd Party as to the proper way to complete this task, such as a key? – ccarpenter32 Jun 18 '18 at 16:30
  • @xedni yes I have inquired, but historically they are not very quick to answer and there is an immediate need for this to complete a project – Matt0 Jun 18 '18 at 16:32
  • @Jiggles32 yes I have inquired, but historically they are not very quick to answer and there is an immediate need for this to complete a project – Matt0 Jun 18 '18 at 16:32
  • Sounds like its time to light a fire under these people and get them to respond. Realistically, your only two options are 1) Wait for the response and get some sort of extension on the project, because it really can't be completed without it OR 2) Try and break it before your deadline, which, based on the encoding and lack of any serious insight into how it was built, *may* be implausible. – ccarpenter32 Jun 18 '18 at 16:44
  • Do strings with similar beginnings have results with similar beginnings? What if you enter: M, then Ma, then Mat, Matt, Matt', Matt's, etc. – David Dubois Jun 20 '18 at 13:03
  • My spidey sense is telling me something like Huffman encoding. Looking at the results in binary might give a clue. – David Dubois Jun 20 '18 at 13:05
  • What do you see if you encode a string with repeated characters? eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> – David Dubois Jun 20 '18 at 13:11

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