Patent ID: 7904729

Claim:
A computer program product for approving a password for a device, the computer program product comprising a non-transitory computer readable medium embodying program code executable by a processor of the device for implementing a password approval method, wherein the password approval method comprises: receiving a password to approve, the password to approve comprising a character sequence; adding a first character from said character sequence to a symbolically equivalent password along with one or more character sequence equivalents for said first character found in a list of symbolic equivalents, if any character sequence equivalents for said first character are found in the list of symbolic equivalents, where the symbolic equivalents comprise at least one of said first character alone or said first character plus any subsequent characters in the character sequence; adding a next character from said character sequence to the symbolically equivalent password, the next character being the character immediately following the character last added to the symbolically equivalent password, along with one or more character sequence equivalents for said next character found in the list of symbolic equivalents, if any character sequence equivalents for said next character are found in the list of symbolic equivalents, where the symbolic equivalents comprise at least one of said next character alone or said next character plus any subsequent characters in the character sequence; and repeating said adding until there are no more next characters in said character sequence; comparing the symbolically equivalent password with a specified forbidden password; and, disapproving the password to approve if the symbolically equivalent password corresponds to the specified forbidden password.