🔰 Final Standard

PIP-23: Sign and verify message by public and private key account

Authors	Javad Rajabzadeh (@ja7ad)
Discussion	View Discussion PIP-23
Category	Interface
Created	14-04-2024

Abstract
Motivation
Specification
Backward Compatibility
Security

Abstract

The purpose of this proposal is to introduce a standardized method for signing and verifying messages using public and private key pairs associated with Pactus accounts.

Motivation

Digital signatures play a crucial role in ensuring the authenticity and integrity of messages exchanged within the Pactus network. Currently, Pactus provides the capability to sign transactions, but lacks a standardized approach for signing arbitrary messages. By implementing a consistent method for signing and verifying messages using public and private key pairs, we can enhance the security and interoperability of Pactus-based applications. This proposal aims to address this gap by introducing a simple yet powerful mechanism for signing and verifying messages, thereby enabling a wide range of use cases such as secure communication, authentication, and data integrity verification on the Pactus blockchain.

Specification

The gRPC server should support following methods:

SignMessageWithPrivateKey (Util Service)
- Input: Message as string, Private key associated with Pactus account as string.
- Output: Signature as hex
- Procedure: Use the private key to generate a cryptographic signature for the input message.
VerifyMessage (Util Service)
- Input: Message as string, Signature as hex, Public key as string
- Output: Boolean indicating the validity of the signature
- Procedure: Use the public key to verify the authenticity of the signature for the input message.
SignMessage (Wallet Service)
- Input: Wallet Name as string, Password for wallet (optional), Message as string, Account address as string
- Output: Signature as hex
- Procedure: Use the private key specific account address in wallet to generate a cryptographic signature for the input message.

Backward Compatibility

This proposal introduces a new feature to the Pactus blockchain and does not impact existing functionalities or data structures within the network.

Security

These APIs provide the ability to securely sign messages using cryptographic techniques. To enhance security, developers using these APIs should adhere to best practices such as using strong passwords for wallets, restricting API calls to localhost, and employing SSL/TLS for secure communications.