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:<p>M1TESSAR/MATTHEW D EQR2L8Q DENLAXWN 1420 180T017A0017 125>30B0WW0179BWN 0E 0T0101L^460MEQCIC4E6a7 GJNwAfTHnyxgY3VQdsPORVOuPZifjf51WrzqAiA3Zp59 Vw5M1YOUc4snjSh86yeyVK0LxthZdoZBBT/2A==<p>It seems to get more interesting as the string goes on. Anyone have any ideas on the encoded data?
The specification for this standard, along with the fields, lengths and meanings are in this document:
<a href="http://www.iata.org/whatwedo/stb/Documents/Resolution792_June2009.pdf" rel="nofollow">http://www.iata.org/whatwedo/stb/Documents/Resolution792_Jun...</a>
<i>Anyone have any ideas on the encoded data?</i><p>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.