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Programming .NET Security
book

Programming .NET Security

by Adam Freeman, Allen Jones
June 2003
Intermediate to advanced
714 pages
22h 8m
English
O'Reilly Media, Inc.
Content preview from Programming .NET Security

Chapter 2. Assemblies

This chapter provides an overview of the .NET assembly, which is a key component in .NET security. We describe the structure and contents of an assembly, demonstrate how to create the different types of assembly, and discuss how you can protect your assemblies from tampering and reverse engineering. The information in this chapter provides a foundation essential for understanding the more advanced topics presented in later chapters, especially those related to Code Access Security.

Assemblies Explained

An assembly contains one or more .NET data types compiled into the Microsoft Intermediate Language (MSIL); in other words, an assembly contains the code that the common language runtime executes. The .NET Framework uses the assembly as the basic unit of deployment and versioning and, most importantly for our purposes, as the basic security boundary. In the following chapters, we will demonstrate how the .NET Framework uses assemblies to enforce security policy; in this section, however, we provide a brief overview of assemblies as a foundation for more advanced topics.

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Publisher Resources

ISBN: 0596004427Supplemental ContentErrata Page