Simplify crypto usage

[jeluard]

Rely on noble-hashes to simplify crypto usage and make sure no polyfills are required.

[wemeetagain]

I don't think we need all of @noble/hashes, rather, I think we can just use webcrypto directly.

eg:

export function randomBytes(length: number): Uint8Array {
  const getRandomValues = globalThis.crypto.getRandomValues;
  if (getRandomValues) {
    return getRandomValues(new Uint8Array(length));
  } else {
    throw new Error("no supported WebCrypto#getRandomValues found");
  }
}

[jeluard]

I don't think we need all of @noble/hashes, rather, I think we can just use webcrypto directly.

That's the approach I started with in #159 but unfortunately webcrypto has been supported in nodejs starting version 20 (and we want to support 18). So there's a need to have some import crypto somewhere to leverage the old nodejs crypto. noble handles that with some exports and global checks.
Also bls already depends on @noble/hashes indirectly via @chainsafe/bls-keygen.

[matthewkeil]

@jeluard I went to close #66 and noticed that it is attempting to do something similar to what you are here. Please take a look at that and tell me if its a good idea or not. Feel free to move that code over to here if you think it'll help towards our goal of isomorphism

[matthewkeil]

Just the question about moving from dep to devDep. Also a small conflict in webpack config. Otherwise LGTM! 🚀

[matthewkeil]

LGTM!!! 🎸

[wemeetagain]

unfortunately webcrypto has been supported in nodejs starting version 20 (and we want to support 18).

Doesn't seem to be the case for the latest 18 (the ones supported via LTS)

$ nvm run 18
Running node v18.16.0 (npm v9.5.1)
Welcome to Node.js v18.16.0.
Type ".help" for more information.
> crypto.getRandomValues(new Uint8Array(4))
Uint8Array(4) [ 191, 254, 240, 7 ]

[matthewkeil]

unfortunately webcrypto has been supported in nodejs starting version 20 (and we want to support 18).

Doesn't seem to be the case for the latest 18 (the ones supported via LTS)

$ nvm run 18
Running node v18.16.0 (npm v9.5.1)
Welcome to Node.js v18.16.0.
Type ".help" for more information.
> crypto.getRandomValues(new Uint8Array(4))
Uint8Array(4) [ 191, 254, 240, 7 ]

It is in 18+ for sure...

[jeluard]

I remember some issues when running benchmarks, so would need to investigate that.
Switching to webcrypto would definitely be a win, and allow us to migrate to latest bls-eth-wasm.

[jeluard]

@matthewkeil @wemeetagain It is only available by default starting 19, before that it was behind an experimental flag --experimental-global-webcrypto. See https://nodejs.org/api/globals.html#crypto , in the history section.
Not sure why it works in the repl as is.

[wemeetagain]

So nodejs crypto global has been available since at least 16, and crypto.getRandomValues has beein available since 17.4. It just hasn't been fully webcrypto compatible.
It used to be that globalThis.crypto === require("node:crypto") rather than globalThis.crypto === require("node:crypto").webcrypto.

The docs mention This implementation is not compliant with the Web Crypto spec, to write web-compatible code use [crypto.webcrypto.getRandomValues()](https://nodejs.org/docs/latest-v18.x/api/webcrypto.html#cryptogetrandomvaluestypedarray) instead.
This is only "non-compliant" because the Web Crypto spec is very specific about the this when the function is called. The Web Crypto spec says it can't be called with a this other than WebCrypto. But this isn't a problem when using the function like so: crypto.getRandomValues(...).

[jeluard]

As seen in benchmarks it fails due to undefined crypto on node18. It's pretty much raw js running on node, but there might be something else triggering the error.

A quick test though:

❯ cat crypto.js
console.log(crypto.getRandomValues(new Uint32Array(10)));

❯ nvm use 18
Now using node v18.20.2 (npm v10.5.0)

❯ node crypto.js
console.log(crypto.getRandomValues(new Uint32Array(10)));
            ^

ReferenceError: crypto is not defined
    at Object.<anonymous> (/Users/julien/Documents/Projects/chainsafe/lodestar/crypto.js:1:13)
    at Module._compile (node:internal/modules/cjs/loader:1364:14)
    at Module._extensions..js (node:internal/modules/cjs/loader:1422:10)
    at Module.load (node:internal/modules/cjs/loader:1203:32)
    at Module._load (node:internal/modules/cjs/loader:1019:12)
    at Function.executeUserEntryPoint [as runMain] (node:internal/modules/run_main:128:12)
    at node:internal/main/run_main_module:28:49

Node.js v18.20.2

❯ nvm use 20
Now using node v20.10.0 (npm v10.2.3)

❯ node crypto.js
Uint32Array(10) [
   571407740,  599494301,
  2559257699, 2926223660,
  1819057593, 1184599816,
  1069392847, 2779221017,
  3060504880, 2988982603
]

So there's probably something else to it.

[wemeetagain]

Ok, yeah I see that now. So strange that the repl is different than running a script.