Re: [Cfrg] RFC 5742 conflict review for draft-dolmatov-kuznyechik

[Simon Josefsson <[e-mail]>]

"Salz, Rich" <[e-mail]> writes:

>> I believe that publishing the document below would conflict with ongoing
>> work in the IETF to provide secure block ciphers that we can use on the
>> Internet.  It is not in the best interest of the IETF nor the Internet at large to
>> publish RFCs of national ciphers if there is no immediate desire to use them
>> in Internet protocols.
>
> As someone who's written more "let's document this so we can use it in
> the IETF" RFC's than anyone else, let me ask you a question.  Is it
> better to have it already written, available to use if needed, or
> better to scramble and get something written just as the need arises?

I believe you have to make a risk assessment.

In this case, I believe the risk that people implements and use this
without understanding the consequences is far far greater than the minor
advantage that there is an RFC available for citation in case a need
arise.

Remember that the text IS already written.  It is ready as a draft if we
ever decide that GOST is the cipher we want to run on the Internet.

Also consider that AES isn't an RFC: the disadvantage of that does not
seem to be stopping us from using it.

To me, publishing this is distracting and steals momentum from other
work the IETF is doing.

/Simon