Patent ID: 7882551

Claim:
An apparatus, comprising: a computer device that accepts a password which has been entered, as an entered password, and compares said entered password with a stored password to determine if said entered password matches with the stored password, said computer device signaling acceptance of the entered password even when the entered password is not exactly the same as the stored password, wherein said signaling acceptance comprises determining a relationship between said entered password and said stored password by correlating portions in the entered password with portions in the stored password, and the relationship is also based on correlating locations of those portions in the entered password with the location of those portions in the stored password, and said computer accepting said entered password if the relationship indicates agreement between the entered password and the stored password by a predetermined amount and signaling the acceptance only when the relationship indicates the agreement by at least the predetermined amount and even when the relationship indicates that the entered password is not exactly the same as the stored password.