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?

>>61
that is what i was suggesting. 90-95% padding, and 5-10% extremely dense, obfuscated code that no one currently maintaining the code would even attempt to understand.