SHA1-HMAC's are often used by API's (and in tokenisation) as a means to prove control over a shared secret. They allow proof of control without sending the secret over the network.
from hashlib import sha1
import hmac
def createSha1HMAC(signstr,secret):
''' Create a SHA1-HMAC of signstr
'''
hashedver = hmac.new(secret,signstr,sha1)
return hashedver.digest().encode('hex')
createSha1HMAC('I Will Sign This String','MySuperS3cr37 key')