A method for authenticating a user with a procedural memory based password system is provided. The procedural password system allows the use of the same password on multiple devices that have different input keyboards. The system stores the password as a sequence of relative position keystrokes. To authenticate the user, the system compares the relative positions and sequence of the keys entered by the user against those stored in a database. Since the password consists of relative positions of the entered keys, the user may use the same password on devices that have different input mechanisms.