On Dec 5, 8:08 am, Patrick Plattes ... > i had a problem with str.crypt - i got every time the same result. The > problem is, that this method only use the first 8 characters of the string: > ... A little googling on 'C standard library crypt' led me to : http://bama.ua.edu/cgi-bin/man-cgi?crypt_unix+5 It turns out the default crypt functionality only uses the first 8 chars, silently ignoring the rest. Suggest looking into a "real" cryptographic lib. Googling for 'ruby crypt' gave up: http://crypt.rubyforge.org/ cheers