A {@code PasswordService} supports common use cases when using passwords as a credentials mechanism. <p/> Most importantly, implementations of this interface are expected to employ best-practices to ensure that passwords remain as safe as possible in application environments. <h2>Usage</h2> A {@code PasswordService} is used at two different times during an application's lifecycle: <ul> <li>When creating a user account or resetting their password</li> <li>When a user logs in, when passwords must be compared</li> </ul> <h3>Account Creation or Password Reset</h3> Whenever you create a new user account or reset that account's password, we must translate the end-user submitted raw/plaintext password value to a string format that is much safer to store. You do that by calling the {@link #encryptPassword(Object)} method to create the safer value. For