4 ms·
> there are already ML-KEM-only implementations in various libraries, so if we want interoperability then it's best to have a standard document “People are alr
by chrismorgan 4mo ago
> there are already ML-KEM-only implementations in various libraries, so if we want interoperability then it's best to have a standard document
“People are already doing it, so we might as well rubber-stamp it even if it’s not great” introduces problems of its own: people will perceive that rubber-stamping as validating it, and now they’ll use it even more, where perhaps if you held back, they wouldn’t.
(There are counter-arguments as well, of course. A couple of relevant cases that spring to mind where a body has not aligned with usage or expectations: W3C lost control of HTML, and it was probably for the best, but they remain a relevant body in closely-related areas; and OSI licence approval is a horribly broken political process which is almost universally misunderstood and close to frozen in time, yet they haven’t suffered like they should have for their misdeeds, they pretty much got away with it. There was also that thing somewhat recently about FedRAMP rubber-stamping Microsoft Cloud despite it failing dismally, because US government agencies had already started using it too much; and I wonder what that does to their credibility.)
This is also a concern with informational/independent submissions through IETF. They are frequently perceived as having IETF/standards weight.
- tptacek 4mo agoThese are arguments, but I don't really understand what they're arguments for. At issue here is whether or not the IETF should document usage of pure-MLKEM TLS. There are environments where people are going to use pure-MLKEM TLS, whether Bernstein likes it or not. His argument is that the IETF should pretend that isn't happening, and throw up weird procedural obstacles to it.
- g-b-r 4mo agoIf it's documented it will be implemented by many more libraries and applications, that's the argument
- tptacek 4mo agoIt already exists. In fact, there are environments where it has to exist. So the argument he's making is that the IETF should pretend it doesn't exist.
- g-b-r 4mo agoCan you (or someone else) please give some example of those environments?
- some_furry 4mo agoTelecoms. I wrote at length about this debate in my blog post about threat modeling: https://soatok.blog/2026/06/30/soatoks-informal-guide-to-threat-models/ https://soatok.blog/2026/06/30/soatoks-informal-guide-to-thr...
- chrismorgan 4mo agoI know approximately nothing about the specific case here, and don’t believe I have any skin in the game. I intended my comment purely abstractly: I’m not commenting on anything technical, merely mentioning a procedural concern: that the line I quoted can sound reasonable, but that I don’t think it’s actually a reasonable argument by itself, because of the likely consequences of such actions. (That is: if that happened to be the only argument—though I doubt it is—there’s a compelling case for rejecting it.)
- rasengan 4mo ago[flagged]
- throw0101d 4mo ago> “People are already doing it, so we might as well rubber-stamp it even if it’s not great” introduces problems of its own: people will perceive that rubber-stamping as validating it, and now they’ll use it even more, where perhaps if you held back, they wouldn’t. The GOST cipher, which is Russia's AES equivalent, is also in an RFC: * https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc9189 https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc9189 * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GOST_(block_cipher) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GOST_(block_cipher) Is the IETF validating its use? The GOST document is categorized in the same way as the one currently being debated/discussed: Informational. It also has "N" under the "Recommended" column (like ML-KEM-only will have): * https://www.iana.org/assignments/tls-parameters/tls-parameters.xhtml#tls-parameters-8 https://www.iana.org/assignments/tls-parameters/tls-paramete...
- ekr____ 3mo agoIn fairness, I do think that this situation is somewhat different. As I noted above (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48812792 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48812792), there are two main routes to an Informational RFC of this kind. * Through the IETF * Through the Independent Stream The GOST documents went through the Independent Stream and therefore do not have IETF imprimateur. These documents are proposed for the IETF Stream and therefore require IETF Consensus to publish. I know this is all super confusing. The basic problem is that the vast majority of RFCs come out of the IETF and so people often act as if all RFCs do. This is of course in part why people pursue Independent Stream publication rather than just publishing things on their own..
- throw0101d 3mo agoI have gotten flack for giving ULA+NPTv6 as a possible solution to an IPv6 multi-homing issue because the RFC that describes it was 'only' "Experimental": * https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc6296 https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc6296 When I pointed out that the NAT(44) RFC (1631/3022) was 'only' "Informational" I got radio silence: * https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc1631 https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc1631