[DenisM]

You're right on DNS, I was not thinking clearly when I wrote that part. I will fix up the article.

The prime scenario that caused me to think about this problem is indeed URL components, and in particular object identifies for RESTful protocols.

The other thing I was thinking about were cookies values, which I have had problems with in the past.

EDIT: The most annoying part about base64 is that different systems have different restrictions. With Maze62 I won't have to think about which system my data will end up in.