Is it possible to use metamask to sign a plaintext message?

Question

I've figured out the mechanism to use Metamask and ethers for the user to sign an arbitrary message, but it involved computing a hash of the message, arrayifying it, and then calling verify message.

Something like this:

 function signMessage(msg : string) : string { 
    let msgHash= ethers.utils.solidityKeccak256(['string'],[msg]);      
    let sig = await this.mySigner.signMessage(ethers.utils.arrayify(hash));
    return sig;
 }

The problem I am trying to solve for is what the user sees when Metamask requests signature of the message, which looks like this:

The problem is that the end user is shown the hash, but no way of knowing what the actual message is they are being asked to sign. If I were the user, I'd like to be able to read the message I am being asked to sign within Metamask. Is there some way that, rather than signing a hash of the message, you can request signature of the clear text of the message? I've tried supplying a string to ethers signer.signMessage function but it produces errors.

Answer 1

You can take a look at this resource on how to use metamask to sign a plaintext message. It hinges on using eth.personal_sign(fromAddress, hexEncodedUtf8Message).

See: https://medium.com/metamask/the-new-secure-way-to-sign-data-in-your-browser-6af9dd2a1527#:~:text=MetaMask%20can%20now%20render%20plain,their%20signature%20challenges%20human%20readable.

Answer 2

You are using the correct method to sign message. But I don't know why you are trying to use python with the ether.js. And you don't need to hash the message when you signing it.

Here's the example:

const Message = async (message) => {
   const signer = ethers.getSigner();
   const signature = await signer.signMessage(message); 
} 

The above function works fine. Since the result singMessage returns is hash, we need to resolve the promise.

To take it little more furture, you can verify the signature using the another method from the ether.js.

const Message = async (message) => {
       const signer = ethers.getSigner();
       const signature = await signer.signMessage(message); 
       const verify = ethers.utils.verifyMessage(message, signature)
    } 

if you log the verify into console you will see the signer address. That is your ethereum address.

Tell me if it helps!