A process for linking a key to a component is disclosed herein along with apparatus that implements the process and related compositions of matter. In various aspects, the key may be a password, hash, key, encryption key, decryption key, seed value, unlock code, or other alphanumeric identifier, and the component includes a computer in networked communication, and may further include a specific user of the computer. The process may include the process step of identifying the component using environmental variables associated with the component, and the process step of forming a representation of the key unique to said component. The representation is tested to determine that the identified component is the source of the representation, in various aspects. Accordingly, the process may include the process step of testing the representation against previous representations thereby determining the representation is not statistically duplicative of previous representations, and the process may include the process step of testing the representation against possible representations from said component where the possible representations are unique to the component.