how do passwords work?

newbie here. so consider this paradox: let's say you have a pass protected rar file. now the password should be stored somewhere in the file to compare against the inputted password. so if it's there how come you cant just extract it?

>>43
Speaking as someone with some NSA cryptologic experience I can assure you that it is most definitely possible to differentiate random from pseudo-random, and pseudo-random from encrypted data for that matter.

I can't delve further into this topic, but maybe someone else can.