What exactly causes binary file "gibberish"?

Binary data is often very random. Encrypted data in particular, by definition. Each byte can be represented by one of 256 characters (leaving Unicode out of the equation). ASCII only covers 128 of these, and only 94 of these are actual printable characters. Outside the ASCII range, you have a number of international characters and strange symbols. There are certainly more than 128 of these, so one must specify a codepage to select a specific set of symbols.

Anyway, since binary files can be represented as a very random assortment of familiar and unfamiliar characters, the file will look like gibberish if you open it in an editor.

You could always open a file (binary or text file, there really is no difference) in a hex editor, and look at the raw binary data.

There is no way to tell which program created a specific file. In particular, if the program has encrypted its data, all hope is lost. Otherwise, it is often easy to recognize certain "signatures."

The display looks interesting, because a binary file can contain non-printable characters. It is up to the displaying program to replace such characters with something else.

This can be prevented by using a hex editor. Such a program displays each byte from the file as its hexadecimal value. That makes for a nice tabular view of the file, but it is not easy for the average person to decipher this view, because we are not used to look at data that way.

There are a few ways to find out what program a file might belong to. You can look at the beginning of the file and with some knowledge, you might recognize the file type. There are some types that begin with the same characters (RAR, GIF etc.). For other types it might not be as easy.

In Linux you can use the "file" command to help you determine file type. There are probably programs for Windows that will do the same.

A binary file appears as gibberish because the data in it is designed for the machine to read and not for humans. Sadly, some of us get used to interpreting gibberish - albeit with somewhat specialized tools to help see the data better - but most people should not need to know.

Each byte in the file is treated as a character in the current code set (probably CP1252 on Windows). Byte value 65 is 'A', for example; you can find illustrative examples easily on the web. So, the bytes that make up the binary data are displayed according to the code set - as best as the text editor can. It doesn't try to convert the binary - it doesn't know how (only the original program does).

As to how to detect what program created the file - you may be able to do that sometimes, but not easily and reliably. On Unix (or with Cygwin on Windows) the 'file' program may be able to help. This program looks at the first few bytes to try and guess the program.

Encrypted data is supposed to look like gibberish. If it doesn't look like gibberish, then it probably isn't very well encrypted.

• Are the binary values of the file trying to be converted into ASCII?

Yes, that's exactly what's happening. Typically, the binary values of the file also include ASCII control characters that aren't printable, resulting in even more bizarre display in a typical text editor.

• Is it possible to convert the view to display raw binary values, i.e. to show the 1s and 0s that make up the file?

It depends on your editor. What you want is a "hex editor", rather than a normal text editor. This will show you the raw contents of the file (typically in hexadecimal rather than binary, since the zeros and ones would take up a lot of space and be harder to read).

• Finally, is there a way to determine what program will properly open a data file?

There is a Linux command-line program called "file" that will attempt to analyze the file (typically looking for common header patterns) and tell you what sort of file it is (for example text, or audio, or video, or XML, etc). I'm not sure if there is an equivalent program for Windows. Of course, the output of this program is just a guess, but it can be very useful when you don't know what the format of a file is.