Question

I am fairly new to this. My PHP echo is returning garbage. I think there’s an encoding step I’m missing.

My OBJ-C code

NSString *key = @"12345678901234561234567890123456";

    //main path for account login PHP file
    NSString *accountURL = [NSString stringWithFormat:configManager.accountURL, username, password];

    //convert password to data and encrypt
    NSData *crypt = [[[password stringValue]dataUsingEncoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding]AES256EncryptWithKey:key];

    NSString *variables = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"?username=%@&access=%@&page=%ld",[username stringValue], crypt, [sender tag]];

    // get rid of spaces in encoded URL
    NSString *niceURLString = [variables stringByAddingPercentEscapesUsingEncoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding];

    //tack niceURL on to end of base URL
    NSString *goToURL = [accountURL stringByAppendingString:niceURLString];
    NSLog(@"%@", goToURL);

    [[NSWorkspace sharedWorkspace] openURL:[NSURL URLWithString:goToURL]];

PHP

$upswd = $_GET['access'];
    $key = "12345678901234561234567890123456";
$upswd = trim($upswd, "<>"); //remove these brackets from url

$result = mcrypt_decrypt(MCRYPT_RIJNDAEL_256, $key, $upswd, 'ecb');
//$result = utf8_decode($result);
echo ($result);

Answer 1

        mcrypt_create_iv(
            mcrypt_get_iv_size(
                MCRYPT_RIJNDAEL_256,
                MCRYPT_MODE_ECB
            )

You are creating an new IV, you need to use the original IV. It is usually passed along with the encrypted text seperated by a delimiter commonly used delimiters are . or | you then have PHP split the encrypted string at the delimiter, use the IV for the decrypt function and use the other part as the encrypted data.