title: Is my VIEWSTATE encrypted?
body: <p>I'm a little confused.  I haven't explicitly set the Web.config <code>&lt;pages ViewStateEncryptionMode="Always" /&gt;</code>, and so <a href="http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.web.ui.page.viewstateencryptionmode.aspx">this MSDN page</a> says that it should default to <code>Auto</code>.  <a href="http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.web.ui.viewstateencryptionmode.aspx">This MSDN page</a> says that <code>Auto</code> should cause the viewstate information to be encrypted if a control requests encryption by calling the <code>RegisterRequiresViewStateEncryption</code> method.  But, none of my controls call that method.  So it looks like my viewstate should, in fact, not be encrypted.</p>
  
  <p>However, when I copy/paste the viewstate into one of the various <a href="http://ignatu.co.uk/ViewStateDecoder.aspx">online</a> <a href="http://lachlankeown.blogspot.com/2008/05/online-viewstate-viewer-decoder.html">viewstate</a> <a href="http://www.motobit.com/util/base64-decoder-encoder.asp">decoders</a>, I'm told that the viewstate serialized data is invalid.  So, is my viewstate encrypted or not?  Is there some obvious way to tell?  Has the default ASP.net behaviour changed to encode the viewstate by defualt unless you disable it?</p>