Abstract: Methods and systems for protecting a password are disclosed. According to one aspect of the present invention, a processor selects a set of local configuration data. This can include one or more strings associated with local configuration data. The processor concatenates the set of local configuration data and calculates a hash value of the concatenated data. The processor generates an encrypted string by using the hash value as a key to encrypt the password. Then the processor encodes the encrypted string as a string in a software program. When the password is needed by a first computer system to access a second computer system, the steps are reversed, the password obtained and the first computer system accesses the second computer system.

Abstract: An approximate message authentication code (AMAC) which, like conventional message authentication codes, provides absolute authentication of the origin of the message, yet provides an approximate integrity check for the content of the message. The approximate integrity check will be computed probabilistically and will likely be the same for messages having only a small percentage of different bits. A distance measure on the AMACs, such as a Hamming distance measure, may be used to determine whether the number of bit differences between the messages is likely to be within an acceptable amount. The AMAC is a probabilistic checksum based on a shared key. The AMAC uses the message and a shared key as inputs. Optionally, an initial value may also be used as an input. In one version of the invention, the data in the message M are permuted and arranged (physically or logically) into a table having |A| bits in each column and T2 rows, where T is may be an odd integer.

Abstract: An approximate message authentication code (AMAC) which, like conventional message authentication codes, provides absolute authentication of the origin of the message, yet provides an approximate integrity check for the content of the message. The approximate integrity check will be computed probabilistically and will likely be the same for messages having only a small percentage of different bits. A distance measure on the AMACs, such as a Hamming distance measure, may be used to determine whether the number of bit differences between the messages is likely to be within an acceptable amount. The AMAC is a probabilistic checksum based on a shared key. The AMAC uses the message and a shared key as inputs. Optionally, an initial value may also be used as an input. In one version of the invention, the data in the message M are permuted and arranged (physically or logically) into a table having |A| bits in each column and T2 rows, where T is may be an odd integer.