The signer may be different from the author of a document. The tag refers to the method of authenticating the signatory. This tag may be most appropriately an attribute of the person submitting or originating the document rather than a parent or child element. It is only appropriately used when no signer exists or was identified. It usually appears in combination with a username or other data that further identifies the individual, but for brevity the tag only refers to the password itself.
Plain passwords involve simple alphanumeric characters.
The plain passwords are subject to discovery during the transmission of the password, by dictionary attacks on the database where they are stored, or attacks upon the stored values in the database. They are very insecure. Cryptographically transformed passwords . There are a number of cryptographically secure protocols for passwords. In such systems, either a symmetric key or hash is used to disguise the value of the password both in transmission and in the stored database.