It avoids dividing by 8 when deserializing a tx, which is a slow
operation, and multiplies by 8 when verifying and extracing the
amount, which is much faster as well as less frequent
The basic approach it to delegate all sensitive data (master key, secret
ephemeral key, key derivation, ....) and related operations to the device.
As device has low memory, it does not keep itself the values
(except for view/spend keys) but once computed there are encrypted (with AES
are equivalent) and return back to monero-wallet-cli. When they need to be
manipulated by the device, they are decrypted on receive.
Moreover, using the client for storing the value in encrypted form limits
the modification in the client code. Those values are transfered from one
C-structure to another one as previously.
The code modification has been done with the wishes to be open to any
other hardware wallet. To achieve that a C++ class hw::Device has been
introduced. Two initial implementations are provided: the "default", which
remaps all calls to initial Monero code, and the "Ledger", which delegates
all calls to Ledger device.
luigi1111