dotnet security: I am trying to locate a unique machine value using C#, for an authentication
process. Is there a way to find or create this value?

Hi,
there are many IDs that you can retrieve from computer hardware. The easiest
from C# is to use WMI. See for example SerialNumber of BaseBoard, or
ProcessorId of CPU, or PNPDeviceID of DiskDrive.
As side note - none of mentioned device's ID was designed for authentication
purposes. You can get quite good Id from cryptographic processors (that Id
is cryptographically strong and based on Digital Signature) , but I didn't
heard of any consumer level computer that comes out with such. If I'm not
mistaken, Intel has plans of integrating cryptographic digital ID with
future version of Intel processors, but that only future plans that if I
remember it correctly, supposed to be used with f.e. Microsoft Palladium (or
NGSCB as it is called now).
I don't know your requirements, so it might be that you simply mean some
kind of identification and don't imply any security behind your
authentication scheme... But if it is last - then for achieving any security
at all you would need some trusted cryptographic hardware + trusted software
path (just as Microsoft is planning with their Palladium/NGSCB).

-Valery.
http://www.harper.no/valery


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