title: TOTP Base32 vs Base64
body: <p>Every TOTP implementation (even FreeOTP by RedHat) I find uses Base32 encoding/decoding for it's generated secret.
  Why is Base64 not used, since Base32 uses roughly 20 % more space and its main advantage is, that it is more human-readable? It is not shown to the user for generation anyways.</p>
  <p>While every comment within the implementation says, that its implementation follows <a href="https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc6238" rel="nofollow noreferrer">RFC6238</a> / <a href="https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc4226" rel="nofollow noreferrer">RFC4226</a>, I cannot find anything being said about Base32 within the RFC documents.</p>
  <p>It obviously makes sense for it to be converted to either Base32 or Base64 because of data safety through transportation, but why not just use Base64 then?</p>