I actually don't know if it's an intention, but it is the only explanation that makes sense. It should be noted that the original PEM specification (RFC 989) di

I actually don't know if it's an intention, but it is the only explanation that makes sense. It should be noted that the original PEM specification (RFC 989) did have a similar use case where alternating encrypted and unencrypted bytes can be intermixed by `*` characters, but you are still required to pad each portion to 4n bytes (e.g. `c2VjcmV0LCA=*cHVibGlj*IGFuZCBzZWNyZXQgYWdhaW4=`). It is still the closest to what I think padding characters are required for.