CLR Inside Out: Using Strong Name Signatures -- MSDN Magazine, July 2006

CLR Inside Out: Using Strong Name Signatures -- MSDN Magazine, July 2006: "Strong name signatures (and signing in general) are a key facet of Microsoft� .NET Framework security. But regardless of how well designed .NET signatures may be, they won�t offer the maximum benefit if you don�t know how to use them properly. This installment of CLR Inside Out talks about strong names, strong name signatures, and how to use them.

A Short Refresher

Digital signatures are used to verify the integrity of data being passed from the originator (the signer) to a recipient (the verifier). The signatures are generated and verified using public key cryptography. The signer of a message has a pair of cryptographic keys: a public key, which everyone in the world knows, and a private key, which is kept secret by the signer. The verifier knows only the public key, which is used to verify that the signer knew the private key and the message.
In some cases, when some additional infrastructure is in place, digital signatures can also be used to reliably learn the name of the signer, and to ensure some chunk of data (a message, some code, or so on) has not been modified after the signer created the signature for the data.
Various mechanisms are used to implement digital signatures. The current implementation of strong names in the .NET Framework relies on the RSA public key algorithm and the SHA-1 hash algorithm."

If u forget VSS Admin Password

hmm, thinking of sharing a tip I learnt
Other day, I changed the VSS Admin password and later forgot it. I normally choose words that I can identify easily. I tried to log in using the same.
However, inspite for my umpteen attempts to log in, I could not. Its then that I decided to check Internet for ways to enter the VSS as an admin.
There were different hacks given, out of which, I found the below as simplest:
Create a new VSS database, with the same list of users you have in the original Database.
Go to the data folder of the new database and copy the file "UM.DAT"
go to the data folder of the original database and replace the file "UM.DAT" with the copied file.
You can now log in as the administrator
Side effects:
1. You have to give the password for each user and inform them again
2. You may have to give the permissions to Users for individual folders, if they were in existence.
After some research, I found a way out for #2 also. While creating the users for the new database, if you create them in the same order as you have done for the original database, the permissions would be retained as given.
I hope that this would help some one who forget the VSS Admin password.