The Nightstar Zoo

Is there a site where I can paste gibberish like this and have it automatically swap all the %nn character codes to their correct single characters? Web browsers these days are too dumbed down to do it themselves. IIRC IE used to be able to figure it out but Netscape and its descendants never could, but would happily convert normal to gibberish when links were copied from their Location: field.

Part of the URL NMjjh%2bq%2fEq04%2fR62lrJ2fQ%3d%3d&v=e&c=kBV52fcGauoUyspC%2f%2fMwjw%3d%3d

The fun stuff that happens when someone forwards an e-mail and somewhere along the line, some software is programmed to convert certain characters to their codes, and the forwarder deletes the mail before verifying that the link worked. Curiously, the /'s ahead of this part did *not* get changed to %2f

_________________
Fandemonium!
August 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 2014

"I am a machine. I am a weapon of war. I am a destroyer of life in the service of life, the sword and shield of my human creators." Bolo Invincibilus, Mark XXIII, Model B (Experimental) 0075-NKE "Nike".

Some more searching, and different search terms, has excavated this site

http://www.url-encode-decode.com/

NMjjh%2bq%2fEq04%2fR62lrJ2fQ%3d%3d&v=e&c=kBV52fcGauoUyspC%2f%2fMwjw%3d%3d

becomes

NMjjh+q/Eq04/R62lrJ2fQ==&v=e&c=kBV52fcGauoUyspC//Mwjw==

Which Firefox understands yet immediately converts to a different URL that has one %3d in it. If Firefox understands that %3d is an = sign, why doesn't it understand all the others?

Looks like lazy programmers to me.

_________________
Fandemonium!
August 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 2014

"I am a machine. I am a weapon of war. I am a destroyer of life in the service of life, the sword and shield of my human creators." Bolo Invincibilus, Mark XXIII, Model B (Experimental) 0075-NKE "Nike".