long name and password combination fail upon authentication with maven repository with mvn 2.2.1

The problem seems to be with the wagon package or the module that calls wagon but I'm not a maven developer so I didn't look at what version of wagon is used. The only fix I could find was to revert to 2.2.0 which works.

This is an anonymized version of my repository credentials. I kept the length the same in both username and password
<server>
<id>repo</id>
<username>nmichalakis@xxxxxxxx.com</username>
<password>{DESede}xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx==</password>
</server>

Here is the exception I get (hiding the auth info):

java.lang.RuntimeException: java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: Illegal character(s) in message header value: Basic bm1pXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXpelN3
PT0=
at sun.net.www.protocol.http.HttpURLConnection.getInputStream(HttpURLConnection.java:1014)
at sun.net.www.protocol.http.HttpURLConnection.getHeaderField(HttpURLConnection.java:2211)
at java.net.HttpURLConnection.getResponseCode(HttpURLConnection.java:382)
at sun.net.www.protocol.https.HttpsURLConnectionImpl.getResponseCode(HttpsURLConnectionImpl.java:318)
at org.apache.maven.wagon.providers.http.LightweightHttpWagon.fillInputData(LightweightHttpWagon.java:115)
at org.apache.maven.wagon.StreamWagon.getInputStream(StreamWagon.java:116)
at org.apache.maven.wagon.StreamWagon.getIfNewer(StreamWagon.java:88)
at org.apache.maven.wagon.StreamWagon.get(StreamWagon.java:61)
at org.apache.maven.artifact.manager.DefaultWagonManager.getRemoteFile(DefaultWagonManager.java:546)
at org.apache.maven.artifact.manager.DefaultWagonManager.getArtifactMetadata(DefaultWagonManager.java:443)
at org.apache.maven.artifact.repository.metadata.DefaultRepositoryMetadataManager.resolve(DefaultRepositoryMetadataManager.java:97)
at org.apache.maven.artifact.transform.AbstractVersionTransformation.resolveVersion(AbstractVersionTransformation.java:65)
at org.apache.maven.artifact.transform.LatestArtifactTransformation.transformForResolve(LatestArtifactTransformation.java:41)
at org.apache.maven.artifact.transform.DefaultArtifactTransformationManager.transformForResolve(DefaultArtifactTransformationManager.java:55)
at org.apache.maven.artifact.resolver.DefaultArtifactResolver.resolve(DefaultArtifactResolver.java:145)
at org.apache.maven.artifact.resolver.DefaultArtifactResolver.resolve(DefaultArtifactResolver.java:90)
at org.apache.maven.project.DefaultMavenProjectBuilder.findModelFromRepository(DefaultMavenProjectBuilder.java:558)
at org.apache.maven.project.DefaultMavenProjectBuilder.buildFromRepository(DefaultMavenProjectBuilder.java:251)
at org.apache.maven.project.artifact.MavenMetadataSource.retrieveRelocatedProject(MavenMetadataSource.java:163)
at org.apache.maven.project.artifact.MavenMetadataSource.retrieve(MavenMetadataSource.java:299)
at org.apache.maven.plugin.version.DefaultPluginVersionManager.resolveMetaVersion(DefaultPluginVersionManager.java:673)
at org.apache.maven.plugin.version.DefaultPluginVersionManager.resolvePluginVersion(DefaultPluginVersionManager.java:187)
at org.apache.maven.plugin.version.DefaultPluginVersionManager.resolvePluginVersion(DefaultPluginVersionManager.java:91)
at org.apache.maven.plugin.DefaultPluginManager.verifyPlugin(DefaultPluginManager.java:179)
at org.apache.maven.plugin.DefaultPluginManager.loadPluginDescriptor(DefaultPluginManager.java:1642)
at org.apache.maven.lifecycle.DefaultLifecycleExecutor.verifyPlugin(DefaultLifecycleExecutor.java:1540)
at org.apache.maven.lifecycle.DefaultLifecycleExecutor.bindPluginToLifecycle(DefaultLifecycleExecutor.java:1503)
at org.apache.maven.lifecycle.DefaultLifecycleExecutor.constructLifecycleMappings(DefaultLifecycleExecutor.java:1282)
at org.apache.maven.lifecycle.DefaultLifecycleExecutor.executeGoal(DefaultLifecycleExecutor.java:534)
at org.apache.maven.lifecycle.DefaultLifecycleExecutor.executeGoalAndHandleFailures(DefaultLifecycleExecutor.java:387)
at org.apache.maven.lifecycle.DefaultLifecycleExecutor.executeTaskSegments(DefaultLifecycleExecutor.java:348)
at org.apache.maven.lifecycle.DefaultLifecycleExecutor.execute(DefaultLifecycleExecutor.java:180)
at org.apache.maven.DefaultMaven.doExecute(DefaultMaven.java:328)
at org.apache.maven.DefaultMaven.execute(DefaultMaven.java:138)
at org.apache.maven.cli.MavenCli.main(MavenCli.java:362)
at org.apache.maven.cli.compat.CompatibleMain.main(CompatibleMain.java:60)
at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)
at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:39)
at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:25)
at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:597)
at org.codehaus.classworlds.Launcher.launchEnhanced(Launcher.java:315)
at org.codehaus.classworlds.Launcher.launch(Launcher.java:255)
at org.codehaus.classworlds.Launcher.mainWithExitCode(Launcher.java:430)
at org.codehaus.classworlds.Launcher.main(Launcher.java:375)

If I remove 3 characters from my username this exception is not thrown. Instead I get an (expected) authentication error.

It seems there was a bug in the past related to this, but it was on Maven 1 and it was fixed:
http://jira.codehaus.org/browse/MAVEN-1273