Patent ID: 7739733

Claim:
A method for storing secret information in a digital vault on a storage medium, said method comprising: obtaining from a user, via an input device, an answer to each of m different questions to generate a set of m answers, wherein m is an integer greater than or equal to 3; identifying, via a microprocessor, subsets S K of the m questions for which acceptable answers later provided by an entity will enable that entity to gain access to the secret information in the digital vault, wherein each subset S K includes a set of n K questions, wherein K is an integer identifying the subset and each n K is an integer that is less than m, wherein at least one subset S K has at least two elements; and for each subset of questions, S K : (a) generating, via the microprocessor, a string T K from the obtained answers for that subset of questions S K ; (b) mathematically combining, via the microprocessor, a value derived from the string, T K , with the secret information to generate a result, F K , that hides the secret information; and (c) storing F K , in the digital vault on the storage medium, wherein the digital vault comprises all stored F K ; wherein the string T K is a concatenation consisting of the following elements in this listed order: K; immediately followed by a delimiter; immediately followed by a salt value; immediately followed by the delimiter; immediately followed by a pepper value; immediately followed by the delimiter; and immediately followed by, for each answer in S K : a length of that answer; immediately followed by the delimiter; immediately followed by that answer; and immediately followed by: if that answer is a last answer in S K , no further characters; otherwise, the delimiter; wherein the salt value is a value particular to the user that is stored and retrieved without using encryption or decryption processes; wherein the pepper value is a randomly generated value.