Calling my web service from a phone

Question

I've got a website which contains the profile of users. I am now working on a mobile app and I would like to access the profile details from via the app. My idea is to simply create a webservice which returns the relevant fields (some of which might be password protected). How can I ensure that the web service is being request only by my application and not by anything else (desktop, other app etc..)? Initial idea was to have a secret key embedded in the program which is used to encrypt the data sent over to the web service, but I'm not sure how difficult it would be for someone to find that key since it's on the client side app.

Any suggestions on what the best approach would be for this type of situation? (I assume the technique would be the same regardless of phone model) Thanks

Answer 1

Microsoft now considers ASMX web services to be "legacy technology". All new development should be done using WCF.

WCF has many more abilities in terms of security than ASMX does.