Partial password when checking a whole password it is common to store the result of passing the password to a cryptographic hash function. As the user does not supply the whole password it cannot be verified against a stored digest of the whole password. Some have suggested storing the digest of each combination of letters that could be requested but they note that this results in generating and storing a large amount of digests. A better solution in terms of storage space and security is using a secret sharing scheme. Partial password A partial password is a mode of password authentication. By
Most recent common ancestor Most recent common ancestor In biology and genealogy, the most recent common ancestor (MRCA, also last common ancestor (LCA), or concestor) of any set of organisms is the most recent individual from which all the organisms are directly descended. The term is also used in reference to the ancestry of groups of genes (haplotypes) rather than organisms. The MRCA of a set of individuals can sometimes be determined by referring to an established pedigree. However, in general, it is impossible to identify the exact MRCA of a large set of individuals, but an estimate of the time at which the