Strong-Named Assembly

A strong name consists of the assembly's identity — its simple text name, version number, and culture information (if provided) — plus a public key and a digital signature. It is generated from an assembly file (the file that contains the assembly manifest, which in turn contains the names and hashes of all the files that make up the assembly), using the corresponding private key.

1) Strong names guarantee name uniqueness by relying on unique key pairs. No one can generate the same assembly name that you can, because an assembly generated with one private key has a different name than an assembly generated with another private key.

2) Strong names protect the version lineage of an assembly. A strong name can ensure that no one can produce a subsequent version of your assembly. Users can be sure that a version of the assembly they are loading comes from the same publisher that created the version the application was built with.

3) Strong names provide a strong integrity check. Passing the .NET Framework security checks guarantees that the contents of the assembly have not been changed since it was built. Note, however, that strong names in and of themselves do not imply a level of trust like that provided, for example, by a digital signature and supporting certificate.

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