Cryptographic system enabling ownership of a secure process

Ownership of a secure process is enabled with a cryptographic system. Methods initializing and operating the cryptographic system transfer control from the loading program to the loaded program and, in essence from the cryptographic system vendor to its end-user. As a result, ownership of the secure process can be relinquished to the end-user so that it alone can subsequently use the cryptographic system to control the secure process of loading and running its user-programs. The cryptographic system and methods allow for secure operations and protect against tampering with application software. The application program is retrieved from an encrypted file in external memory and authenticated by the cryptographic system before being executed.