docs: def encrypt(passwd):
      """
      Encrypts the incoming password after adding some salt to store
      it in the database.
  
      @param passwd: password portion of user credentials
      @type passwd: string
  
      @returns: encrypted/salted string
      """
      m = sha1()
      salt = hexlify(os.urandom(salt_len))
      m.update(unicode2bytes(passwd) + salt)
      crypted = bytes2unicode(salt) + m.hexdigest()
      return crypted