Os caracteres ASCII que você vê são um certificado codificado em ASCII, de acordo com os padrões SSL. Há várias ferramentas que você pode usar para decodificar (em vez de descriptografar) o certificado; aqui está um exemplo:
[me@anni tmp]$ cat /tmp/cert
-----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----
MIIFNDCCBBygAwIBAgIDB9RMMA0GCSqGSIb3DQEBBQUAMDwxCzAJBgNVBAYTAlVT
[many lines deleted to save space]
n0lvNATb6/RC7CmSMw5RelfVqm19YorWPeQ8c/a6uHSgYhLboPeNTA==
-----END CERTIFICATE-----
[me@anni tmp]$ openssl x509 -text -noout -in /tmp/cert
Certificate:
Data:
Version: 3 (0x2)
Serial Number: 513100 (0x7d44c)
Signature Algorithm: sha1WithRSAEncryption
Issuer: C=US, O=GeoTrust, Inc., CN=RapidSSL CA
Validity
Not Before: Aug 16 06:07:05 2012 GMT
Not After : Oct 16 09:42:56 2016 GMT
Subject: serialNumber=5VXPb8ozky-0FKC/YsTB4dvcoUwVakXy, OU=GT42621204, OU=See www.rapidssl.com/resources/cps (c)12, OU=Domain Control Validated - RapidSSL(R), CN=www.teaparty.net
Subject Public Key Info:
Public Key Algorithm: rsaEncryption
Public-Key: (2048 bit)
Modulus:
00:aa:e2:fd:b3:a2:5c:fa:33:0b:fa:14:8a:3a:3d:
[...]
f8:01
Exponent: 65537 (0x10001)
X509v3 extensions:
X509v3 Authority Key Identifier:
keyid:6B:69:3D:6A:18:42:4A:DD:8F:02:65:39:FD:35:24:86:78:91:16:30
X509v3 Key Usage: critical
Digital Signature, Key Encipherment
X509v3 Extended Key Usage:
TLS Web Server Authentication, TLS Web Client Authentication
X509v3 Subject Alternative Name:
DNS:www.teaparty.net, DNS:teaparty.net
X509v3 CRL Distribution Points:
Full Name:
URI:http://rapidssl-crl.geotrust.com/crls/rapidssl.crl
X509v3 Subject Key Identifier:
1A:6D:59:8A:CD:C0:FD:AC:3C:D0:AF:C0:99:48:F5:5C:B9:AD:A9:E3
X509v3 Basic Constraints: critical
CA:FALSE
Authority Information Access:
OCSP - URI:http://rapidssl-ocsp.geotrust.com
CA Issuers - URI:http://rapidssl-aia.geotrust.com/rapidssl.crt
X509v3 Certificate Policies:
Policy: 2.16.840.1.113733.1.7.54
CPS: http://www.geotrust.com/resources/cps
Signature Algorithm: sha1WithRSAEncryption
28:30:d9:19:a8:5e:8e:56:f6:98:1c:e0:be:b3:39:6e:6f:4c:
[...]
a0:f7:8d:4c