Just because there's a standard doesn't mean it's consistent

I came across this URL (Uniform Resource Locator) today that has some base64 encoded data in it. Curious as to what it might be, I tossed the data into a base64 decoder only to have it reject the data as bad.

Okay. It certainly looks like base64 encoded data. But the data doesn't match the RFC-2045 [1] specification. Don't tell me there's more than one … oh for heaven's sake [2]! Really? Thirteen variations?

Standards! There are so many to choose from!

[1] https://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2045.txt

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Base64#Implementations_and_history

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