I second Rob and David. RFC numbers matter outside the IETF; they are a signal 
that something is mature and well-vetted, and can then be re-ratified in NIST 
documents, ISO documents, PCI documents, etc etc. 

 

I think that for something as critical as the recommended PQ TLS cipher suite, 
saying “It’s documented in an expired unadopted draft” is setting a bad 
precedent.

 

Since the technical details are immutable at this point, and the only thing for 
the WG to do is massage the prose, I think this can fly through to WGLC pretty 
quickly. 

 

I am willing to review and help iterate the descriptive text.

 

---

Mike Ounsworth

 

From: Rob Sayre <say...@gmail.com> 
Sent: Wednesday, February 26, 2025 2:19 PM
To: Christopher Wood <c...@heapingbits.net>
Cc: TLS@ietf.org
Subject: [EXTERNAL] [TLS] Re: WG Adoption Call for Post-Quantum Hybrid 
ECDHE-MLKEM Key Agreement for TLSv1.3

 

On Wed, Feb 26, 2025 at 11: 43 AM Christopher Wood <caw@ heapingbits. net> 
wrote: As I understand it, the purpose of this draft is to specify an 
interoperable key exchange mechanism that we can deploy. The draft already has 
code points allocated



On Wed, Feb 26, 2025 at 11:43 AM Christopher Wood <c...@heapingbits.net 
<mailto:c...@heapingbits.net> > wrote:

As I understand it, the purpose of this draft is to specify an interoperable 
key exchange mechanism that we can deploy. The draft already has code points 
allocated to it, and they exist in the registry 
<https://urldefense.com/v3/__https:/www.iana.org/assignments/tls-parameters/tls-parameters.xhtml*tls-parameters-8__;Iw!!FJ-Y8qCqXTj2!caxA5xKNO9EN5tBE2pwtNVuOlDf3jQuTmziPO0IkHs2TkjXL0eNzCImowcnqd_JJQae-2acySqI9hNe2Yis$>
 , so I wonder: what is the point of adopting this draft when the important 
work is already done? If it’s that some folks won’t implement it until there’s 
an RFC number assigned to it, well, that’s pretty silly.

 

It is silly. But the nature of the issue is that people that do implement it 
can put "RFC NNNN support" on their comparison checklists. So, it's more 
effective than the code points, especially if we want to encourage smaller 
implementations to implement.

 

I support adoption if it helps this work get implemented more broadly, but I 
think it’s worth asking whether or not this is a good use of an already busy 
working group’s time.

 

 I think it will help the work get implemented more broadly, so I support 
adoption.

 

thanks,

Rob

 

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