Can I change the alphabet string for Base 64 encoding?

Question

I've worked with this popular JavaScript function. I want to use another value for keyStr.

Can I change the value of keyStr to something else? (something less common)

var keyStr = "ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz0123456789+/=";

function encode64(input) {
   if (!String(input).length) return false;
   var output = "";
   var chr1, chr2, chr3;
   var enc1, enc2, enc3, enc4;
   var i = 0;

   do {
      chr1 = input.charCodeAt(i++);
      chr2 = input.charCodeAt(i++);
      chr3 = input.charCodeAt(i++);

      enc1 = chr1 >> 2;
      enc2 = ((chr1 & 3) << 4) | (chr2 >> 4);
      enc3 = ((chr2 & 15) << 2) | (chr3 >> 6);
      enc4 = chr3 & 63;

      if (isNaN(chr2)) {
         enc3 = enc4 = 64;
      } else if (isNaN(chr3)) {
         enc4 = 64;
      }

      output = output + keyStr.charAt(enc1) + keyStr.charAt(enc2) + 
         keyStr.charAt(enc3) + keyStr.charAt(enc4);
   } while (i < input.length);

   return output;
}

function decode64(input) {
   if (!input) return false;
   var output = "";
   var chr1, chr2, chr3;
   var enc1, enc2, enc3, enc4;
   var i = 0;

   // remove all characters that are not A-Z, a-z, 0-9, +, /, or =
   input = input.replace(/[^A-Za-z0-9\+\/\=]/g, "");

   do {
      enc1 = keyStr.indexOf(input.charAt(i++));
      enc2 = keyStr.indexOf(input.charAt(i++));
      enc3 = keyStr.indexOf(input.charAt(i++));
      enc4 = keyStr.indexOf(input.charAt(i++));

      chr1 = (enc1 << 2) | (enc2 >> 4);
      chr2 = ((enc2 & 15) << 4) | (enc3 >> 2);
      chr3 = ((enc3 & 3) << 6) | enc4;

      output = output + String.fromCharCode(chr1);

      if (enc3 != 64) {
         output = output + String.fromCharCode(chr2);
      }
      if (enc4 != 64) {
         output = output + String.fromCharCode(chr3);
      }
   } while (i < input.length);

   return output;
}

keyStr is set the following string for every website that I've visited:

ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz0123456789+/=

Answer 1

Yes, you can change the alphabet string, but the produced encoded strings can only be decoded into their original byte values if the decoder uses the same alphabet string.

If you change the alphabet (rearranging characters or using completely different characters), then you're essentially changing Base 64 to a classical substitution cipher. Those are not at all secure given enough ciphertext. One common way to break it is to use frequency analysis.

If you want to secure communication, then you should use TLS, because JavaScript cryptography breaks for man-in-the-middle attacks.