C#: why sign an assembly?

Question

In some C# code I have taken over (in Visual Studio 2005), I have noticed that the assemblies are all signed with the same .snk file.

• Wh

Answer 1

A very important reason to sign an assembly is so you can be sure it is your assembly. Since the private key is yours, nobody else can sign an assembly with that same key. This means that when the public key of an assembly is one you know (you can retrieve this using the GetType().Assembly.GetName().GetPublicKey() function), the assembly is yours and it has not been tampered with.