Introducing the Generic Parser: Enabling Clear Signing at Scale

Before You Dive In:

—— The Generic Parser is an important tool helping blockchain and dApp developers to implement Clear Signing for their protocols.

——  Clear Signing solves the problem of blind signing by ensuring critical transaction data is human-readable and easy to understand. 

——  Ledger’s ERC-7730 Clear Signing standard eliminates the need for custom plugins to enable Clear Signing on Ledger devices, making it easier for developers to adopt.

Written by Carl Anderson, VP Engineering

Clear Signing is Ledger’s “raison d’être” – it is the foundation of transaction security. This is why our signers featured screens from day 1, and why we’ve been laser-focused on evolving and improving Clear Signing through plugins and launching the Clear Signing Initiative in 2024 to drive the adoption across the crypto ecosystem. I’m thrilled to announce the latest step in that evolution – the release of the Generic Parser. This groundbreaking innovation will revolutionize the way dApps interact with Ledger devices and deliver the benefits of Clear Signing to a wider audience.

The Pervasive Problem of Blind Signing

Though many types of potential exploits can put users’ digital assets at risk, few are as pervasive as the threat of malicious smart contracts. Blind Signing, where users approve transactions without fully understanding the details, is a primary way that funds can be lost to malicious contracts. The recent historic ByBit/Safe hack, which occurred due to blind signing, dramatically underscored this urgent need for change.

Fortunately, blind signing is a solvable problem and one that Ledger already has a solution for, and that solution is Clear Signing.

Clear Signing translates complex transaction details into a human-readable form for display on Ledger devices, protecting users from hacks. It enables users to understand clearly what the details of a transaction are before they sign it. However, for Clear Signing to be an effective counter to blind signing, it needs to be widely adopted by dApps, which is why the Generic Parser is so important.

What is the Generic Parser?

The Generic Parser is a powerful tool that reads and parses information submitted by dApps, enabling Clear Signing at scale. Until now, Clear Signing dApp transactions could only be done via custom plug-ins on Ledger devices, each with the hardcoded parsing. This created a significant barrier to bringing Clear Signing to more dApps, as they needed specialized knowledge to create the custom plugins. We named it the Generic Parser, because it’s a generic plugin; thanks to the metadata provided, it can parse and display transaction data in a user-friendly way, and enable wider Clear Signing adoption.

The foundation to the Generic Parser is our ERC-7730 Clear Signing Standard, empowering developers to implement Clear Signing into their smart contracts with ease.

As a quick refresher, ERC (Ethereum Request for Comments) Standards are used by core Ethereum developers to propose, discuss, and implement different technical standards for the creation of tokens, smart contracts, applications, wallet formats, etc., on Ethereum.

In other words, Ledger’s ERC-7730 is an open standard, so while we are actively using it, nothing stops any external wallet supporting the standard. In fact, that is exactly what we want to see; the entire ecosystem parsing and displaying meaningful information to users rather than confusing blobs of data.

Under the hood, ERC-7730 provides metadata specifying how interactions with their smart contracts should be displayed to their users, providing a better user experience by being transparent which in turn enhances security.

So, Generic Parser allows us to Clear Sign transactions directly via the ETH app, eliminating the need for dedicated custom plug-ins with dApps.

Why is Clear Signing Important?

Transparency is a fundamental principle of the blockchain, and providing clear, easy-to-understand information directly on your Ledger device is a vital part of keeping your digital assets safe as you actively explore the world of crypto.

How The Generic Parser Works

Clear Signing solves the issue of blind signing by ensuring critical information is human-readable and easy to understand. Though many elements contribute to the effectiveness of Clear Signing, some of the most important ones are those that make it scalable across the crypto ecosystem. The Generic Parser is one of those key elements.

dApps supporting our ERC-7730 standard simply need to submit JSON files, from which the Generic Parser will interpret and parse the right metadata. Right now, Ledger is the only wallet vendor supporting this format, but we’re eager for other wallets to join in, so more crypto users see clear and understandable transaction information instead of meaningless hexadecimal.

Along with the standard’s documentation, we have released tools to assist developers in creating these metadata files and previewing transactions on our device screens:

The Device Management Kit is our brand new SDK for any software to communicate with our devices. This allows software (dApps or wallets) to support our devices, and Clear Signing. Through this development kit, you can launch the clear signing flow with the metadata to trigger the Clear Signing experience for a user. If you want to know more about what the Device Management Kit is, check-out this talk where we presented it at ETH Denver:

Join Us in Shaping the Future of Blockchain

For a decade, Ledger has led the digital asset security space, constantly identifying and addressing vulnerabilities across the crypto ecosystem through the work of The Ledger Donjon.

Our security philosophy recognizes that there is an important difference between security at rest and security in use. Thanks to Ledger’s security model, your private keys are always secure, even if your device falls into someone else’s hands – that’s security at rest. In contrast, security in use, means keeping users secure while they actively participate in the blockchain, presenting a far greater challenge.

Security at use has to consider the increased room for user error, with blind signing being a prime example. That’s why Ledger is relentless about providing the features that help keep users’ assets safe whenever they want to use their Ledger device, and why making Clear Signing an industry standard is such an important goal.

We are now in the evolution phase of The Clear Signing roadmap, having successfully launched the Clear Signing Initiative, ERC-7730, and the ERC-7730 builder. This phase will see us continuing to push Clear Signing across the industry. The introduction of the Generic Parser is a key launch that sets the stage for more adoption and improved readability at scale. This empowers developers to adopt clear-signing protocols while minimizing friction, leading to better coverage of smart contracts and enhanced security for users.

If you’re a developer looking to implement Clear Signing on your project, we’d love for you to join our mission. Thanks to the ERC-7730 builder and our Device Management Kit, implementing Clear Signing on your smart contracts is seamless and easy to do. For more information on ERC-7730, the Generic Parser, and Clear Signing, visit the Clear Signing page in our Developer Portal today. And if you have any questions, don’t hesitate to reach out!