Can several assemblies have the same publickey?

0
votes

Can several .dll's have the same publickey (strong name)? I found 61 versions of mscorlib.dll on my computer. When I ran the tool sn -T I found that some of them had the same publickey!? C:\Program Files (x86)\Reference Assemblies\Microsoft\Framework.NETFramework\v3.5\Profile\Client\mscorlib.dll and C:\Program Files (x86)\Reference Assemblies\Microsoft\Framework.NETFramework\v4.0\mscorlib.dll appears to have the same publickey (b77a5c561934e089). How are these keys generated anyway? Are the y CRC checksum of the file?

1
c#.net
A "strong name" is not the same as the public key. You use a key pair to create a signature and thus give the assembly a "strong name." - David W

1 Answers

1
votes

Yes they can. But the public key is not the strong name, it's "only" the public part of the encryption key used to sign the assembly (or the assemblies). Once you do this, the assembly has a strong name.