[TLS] Re: WG Last Call: draft-ietf-tls-mlkem-05 (Ends 2025-11-26)

["D. J. Bernstein" <[e-mail]>]

Trimming to [e-mail] since the last-call period has ended.

Muhammad Usama Sardar writes:
> If any one can write such profiles, then the whole idea of MTI
> becomes questionable to me. That is, I could write my own profile and say I
> am still compliant with RFC 8446.

Indeed, such permission wouldn't make any sense. MTI requirements are
critical protocol requirements for ensuring interoperability, so I'm
baffled at the idea that implementors are allowed to ignore them. (Would
the TLS-LTS "profile" become part of IETF's TLS if the author sticks the
word "standard" on top of the document and posts the result somewhere?)

Pasi Eronen explained the actual intent of the wording on list in 2006:
"The 'application profile specifications' mentioned in Sections 5.2 and
5.4 were intended to specify how to *use* the RFC4279 ciphersuites to
secure some particular application/service/higher-layer-protocol,
without modifying anything in TLS. (In other words, something like RFC
2818 or 4261, which are for certificate-based ciphersuites)"

This doesn't directly answer your question about authority (I would
think that the word "standard" in an RFC means "IETF standard" when the
text doesn't explicitly allow non-IETF standards), but "use ... without
modifying anything in TLS" says that this is making selections _within_
the allowed options, not making exceptions.

To me this is what the word "profile" means in a technical context, so I
don't agree that a more permissive notion matches the text of RFC 8446.

---D. J. Bernstein


===== NOTICES =====

This document may not be modified, and derivative works of it may not be
created, and it may not be published except as an Internet-Draft. (That
sentence is the official language from IETF's "Legend Instructions" for
the situation that "the Contributor does not wish to allow modifications
nor to allow publication as an RFC". I'm fine with redistribution of
copies of this document; the issue is with modification. Legend language
also appears in, e.g., RFC 5831. For further background on the relevant
IETF rules, see https://cr.yp.to/2025/20251024-rules.pdf.)