.NET Framework Security

Chapter 5. Evidence: Knowing Where Code Comes From

By Matthew Lyons

IN THIS CHAPTER

• Evidence Explained

• Different Sources of Evidence

• Evidence and the Base Class Library

As explained in Chapter 4, “User- and Code-Identity–Based Security: Two Complimentary Security Paradigms,” code identity security is the basis of the security system in the .NET Framework. However, what does it really mean for some program to have an identity? How can the system assign identity to a given piece of code? These are the fundamental questions that this chapter addresses.

Users generally have a username and password to authenticate themselves to a computer, but that authentication process is active. That is, users log on by typing in their names and passwords. However, ...