Cryptography
Live Contracts uses the SHA256 to create a cryptographic hashes. The BLAKE2b and SHA256 hashing algorithms are used for creating public/secret key pairs. The ED25519 scheme is applied to create and verify signatures. X25519 is used for asymmetric encryption as key exchange. Salsa20 (with Poly1305) is used for both asymmetric and symmetric encryption. Base58 is used to create the string from of bytes.
If you want to create an application, you should find the implementation of these algorithms on your programming language.
Arrays of bytes (like strings and hashes) in the project are encoded by Base58 algorithm with Bitcoin alphabet.
When encoding a hash, use the raw bytes and not the hexidecimal notation.
Note that encoding is not encryption. You can decode a base58 encoded message without the need of any type of key.
Examples
The string
hello worldis encoded asStV1DL6CwTryKyV.SHA256 hash
e3b0c44298fc1c149afbf4c8996fb92427ae41e4649b934ca495991b7852b855is encoded asGKot5hBsd81kMupNCXHaqbhv3huEbxAFMLnpcX2hniwn
In general Live Contracts uses the 256 bit version of SHA-2 for encoding. SHA-2 is one of the most common hashing algorithms which means it's available for almost all platforms and programming languages.
When secure hashes are required, a combination of BLAKE2b and SHA256 are used.
BLAKE2b is supported by NaCL compatible libraries like libsodium as 'Generic hashing'. It's widely supported across platforms and languages.
Live Contracts uses Curve25519 (Montgomery form) for encryption (X25519) and signing (ED25519).
A seed string is a representation of entropy, from which you can re-create deterministically all the private keys for an account. It should be long enough so that the probability of selection was a unrealistic negligible.
For ease of memorization the LegalThings One front-end uses Brainwallet, to ensure that the seed is made up of words, that is easy to write down or remember. The app takes the UTF-8 bytes of the string and uses them to create keys and addresses.
For example, seed string manage manual recall harvest series desert melt police rose hollow moral pledge kitten position add after reading as UTF-8 bytes and encoding them to Base58 string are coded as (split in 3 lines)xrv7ffrv2A9g5pKSxt7gHGrPYJgRnsEMDyc4G7srbia6P
hXYLDKVsDxnqsEqhAVbbko7N1tDyaSrWCZBoMyvdwaFNj
WNPjKdcoZTKbKr2Vw9vu53Uf4dYpyWCyvfPbRskHfgt9q
A seed string is involved with the creation of private keys. When creating a private key using the LTO Network front-end, the seed is prepended with a 'nonce' field of 4 bytes (big-endian representation). This initially has a value of 0 and increases every time you create the new account. We use this array of bytes for calculate hash sha256(blake2b256(bytes)). This resulting array of bytes we call account seed, from it you can generate a private and public key pair. This is then converted to a public and private key pair for the ED25519 algorithm.
Generate an ED25519 key from the seed and than convert it to create the X25519 key, or generate both keys from the seed.
NOTE: Not all random 32 bytes can be used as private keys (but any bytes of any size can be a seed). The signature scheme for the ED25519 introduces restrictions on the keys, so create the keys only through the methods of the cryptography libraries and be sure to make a test of the ability to sign data with a private key and then check it with a public key, however obvious this test might seem.
Recommended libraries
​Other encryption libraries might work as well, but make sure they yield the same result as the recommended libraries. The Waves API library is known to yield another result and shouldn't be used to create an account from seed.
Brainwallet seed string
manage manual recall harvest series desert melt police rose hollow moral pledge kitten position add
As UTF-8 bytes encoded
xrv7ffrv2A9g5pKSxt7gHGrPYJgRnsEMDyc4G7srbia6PhXYLDKVsDxnqsEqhAVbbko7N1tDyaSrWCZBoMyvdwaFNjWNPjKdcoZTKbKr2Vw9vu53Uf4dYpyWCyvfPbRskHfgt9q
Account seed bytes with nonce 0 before apply hash function in Base58
1111xrv7ffrv2A9g5pKSxt7gHGrPYJgRnsEMDyc4G7srbia6PhXYLDKVsDxnqsEqhAVbbko7N1tDyaSrWCZBoMyvdwaFNjWNPjKdcoZTKbKr2Vw9vu53Uf4dYpyWCyvfPbRskHfgt9q
blake2b256v (account seed bytes)
6sKMMHVLyCQN7Juih2e9tbSmeE5Hu7L8XtBRgowJQvU7
Account seed (sha256(blake2b256(account seed bytes)))
H4do9ZcPUASvtFJHvESapnxfmQ8tjBXMU7NtUARk9Jrf
Account seed after SHA256 hashing (optional, if your library does not do it yourself)
49mgaSSVQw6tDoZrHSr9rFySgHHXwgQbCRwFssboVLWX
Created private key (using encryption library)
3kMEhU5z3v8bmer1ERFUUhW58Dtuhyo9hE5vrhjqAWYT
Created public key (using encryption library)
HBqhfdFASRQ5eBBpu2y6c6KKi1az6bMx8v1JxX4iW1Q8
ED25519 is used for all the signatures in the project.
The process is as follows: create the message for signing example for an event, then create a signature from this message using the private key.
Validation of signature requires the signature, the message and the public key.
Functions for ED25519 are defined as sign in libsodium and nacl.
Do not forget that there are many valid (not unique!) signatures for a one message. Also you should should not rely on any information before the hash and/or signature are checked.
There are 3 algorithms involved for asymmetric encryption:
Key exchange: X25519
Encryption: XSalsa20 stream cipher
Authentication: Poly1305 MAC
This is a public key encryption schema, where the public key is used to encrypt data and the private key is used to decrypt data.
Functions that use the combination of these algorithms are defined as box in libsodium and nacl. X25519 is sometimes referred to as Curve25519.
There are 2 algorithms involved for symmetric encryption:
Encryption: XSalsa20 stream cipher
Authentication: Poly1305 MAC
Symmetric encryption SHOULD be applied when linking to external content in a template, document or comment.
You SHOULD always generate a new random key when using symmetric encryption. While the key SHOULD NOT be shared with third parties, anybody that has a copy of the key can still do so.
Typically both access to the chain, as the encryption key are required to gain access to sensitive data.
Functions that use a combination of these algorithms is are defined as secretbox in libsodium and nacl.
