OT: Mac OS X have a "registry"?

[Rob Gould]

Can anyone tell me if Mac OS X has a "registry", like Windows?  I 
basically need a place to store an encrypted password, and I need 
someplace to store it where people would be unlikely to find it. 
Putting it in the preferences folder would be too obvious.  My 
PC-buddies were telling me that the registry might be a good option, but 
I don't recall reading anywhere that Mac OS X has such a thing.

This password just needs to be stored, and then the user reboots their 
Mac, and then in the startup folder will exist a .rev app that reads the 
password and acts upon it, and then deletes it, so it doesn't need to 
hang around after that point.