Warren Tang's Blog

Cryptographic Service Providers and Key Containers

CspParameters Class
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.security.cryptography.cspparameters.aspx

Digital Certificates and Signed Messages

[See Ref#1 #2(PKCS#7, CMS)]

A certificate is really an ASN.1 (Abstract Syntax Notation One) encoded file that contains a public key and additional information about that key and its owner. X509 (currently version 3) is a standard for digital certificates.

Namespaces:
System.Security.Cryptography.X509Certificates
System.Security.Cryptography.Pkcs

Tools:
makecert.exe
signtool.exe

XML Digital Signatures (XMLDsig)

Namespace:
System.Security.Cryptography.Xml

XML Encryption and Digital Signatures
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms229749.aspx

Reference

1. Support Certificates In Your Applications With The .NET Framework 2.0
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/cc163454.aspx
2. PKCS #7
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PKCS
Credential Management with the .NET Framework 2.0
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/aa480470.aspx
Protect Your Data Via Managed Code And The Windows Vista Smart Card APIs
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/cc163521.aspx

XML Signature WG
http://www.w3.org/Signature/
XML-Signature Syntax and Processing (XMLDsig)
http://www.w3.org/TR/xmldsig-core/
Protect Your Web Services Through The Extensible Policy Framework In WSE 3.0
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/cc163650.aspx
Exchange Data More Securely with XML Signatures and Encryption
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/cc185723.aspx
A First Look at APIs For Creating XML Paper Specification Documents
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/cc163664.aspx
New Technologies Help You Make Your Web Services More Secure
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/cc164158.aspx
A New Standard For Packaging Your Data
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/cc163372.aspx