strong naming question

[bart]

Hi,

I am a little confused by the internals of what happens
when an assembly is "strongly named". For the short time
working with .NET, I thought that SN.exe created a pair
of keys (private and public) randomly and BOTH were used
to sign an assembly.
I read this article recently from Microsoft...
http://msdn.microsoft.com/netframework/default.aspx?
pull=/library/en-us/dnnetsec/html/strongNames.asp

which states...
"If you assign a public key to your assembly, it is
considered "strongly named";..."

Is the private key part of the public key? Furthermore,
if I use "delay signing" and just use the public key not
the private does this mean the assembly is strongly named?

thanks in advance

 

[Chris Taylor]

Hi,

The private key part is used to as a key to encrypt the cryptographic hash
of the assembly. The public key can then be used to decrypt the hash. So
both the public and private keys are generated, however the private key is
*never* distributed.

Hope this helps

Chris Taylor