Ledger, the leading provider of hardware cryptocurrency wallets, is getting closer to releasing its planned solution to allow users to backup and recover a Ledger device seed.
Ledger’s CTO, Charles Guillemet, advertisement on Twitter on June 21 that the hardware wallet company has published the Ledger Recover white paper.
Today, we are publishing the Ledger Recover White Paper, a key step in allowing anyone to audit the cryptographic protocols.
This builds on the over 150 apps and other open-source enablement Ledger has already implemented.
Don’t trust, verify. pic.twitter.com/SbjDQRYCQM
—Charles Guillemet (@P3b7_) June 21, 2023
Today, we are publishing the Ledger Recover White Paper, a key step in enabling anyone to audit cryptographic protocols.
This builds on the more than 150 applications and other open source enablements that Ledger has already implemented.
Don’t trust, verify.
Guillemet said the next service is expected to launch in the fourth quarter of 2023, provided by digital asset security company Coincover. The main conclusion of the white paper is that the new service is “100% secure”, the CTO assured. “You can find out exactly how it works technically and examine the service for yourself,” he said.
Available on GitHub, the white paper for Ledger Recover offers a 34-page document that includes a technical overview of Ledger’s solution for hardware wallet seed backup and restore.
The Ledger Recover repository supports three main workflows, including backing up the seed, restoring it to a new device, and secure deletion of backups. The white paper also includes data on Ledger Recover’s system design and cryptographic protocol.
One of the implementations involves splitting the seed into shares using existing private key distribution technology known as Shamir backup. “Having less than the required number of shares does not provide any information about the seed,” the white paper notes.
The white paper stresses that users can run the protocol independently of Ledger, which is supposed to underscore its flexibility and commitment to self-custody.
As previously reported, Ledger’s seed recovery tool has drawn significant criticism from the crypto community. Introduced in May 2023, Ledger Recovery is an optional subscription for users who want to back up their recovery passphrase, according to the CTO.
Many industry players, such as Polygon Labs’ Mudit Gupta, pointed out potential vulnerabilities in Ledger Recovery. “The problem here is that the parts of the encrypted keys are sent to 3 corporations and they can rebuild your keys”, he pointed. The founder and CEO of Binance, Changpeng Zhaoalso questioned the benefits of the new tool: “So the seed can already leave the device? Sounds like a different direction than ‘your keys never leave the device’.”
According to Ledger’s CTO, the new seed recovery solution “does not change the security” of Ledger devices. Guillemet also called on cryptocurrency developers, researchers, and enthusiasts to study the white paper and fully understand the security mechanisms of the wallet.
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