Abstract: Computer user authentication and cryptographic key protection through the use of personal entropy (PE) is implemented using a PE answering algorithm which enables a user of a computing system to generate secret values from answers to questions previously created by the user. The questions are displayed to the user on a user interface (UI), and the user is prompted to select a subset of the questions to answer. When the user provides answers for the selected subset, an attempt is made to generate the secret value from a portion of the subset and possibly other information. If the secret value cannot be generated from at least a portion of the selected subset, the user is prompted to select a second subset of the displayed questions and provide answers to the selected second set of questions. When the user provides answers to the second selected subset of questions, an attempt is made to generate the secret value from a portion of the first and second sets of answers and possibly other information.