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[TLS] Re: WG Last Call: draft-ietf-tls-mlkem-07 (Ends 2026-02-27)

Muhammad Usama Sardar <muhammad_usama.sardar@tu-dresden.de> Wed, 18 February 2026 09:35 UTC

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Subject: [TLS] Re: WG Last Call: draft-ietf-tls-mlkem-07 (Ends 2026-02-27)
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On 18.02.26 04:08, David Adrian wrote:

> The arguments against hybrids have been articulated by multiple people 
> on this list, including myself [1].

I may be wrong (and please feel free to correct me if so): I believe 
there is a big difference between adoption call and WGLC for 
publication. While arguments on list are fine for former, they are not 
suitable for the latter. In my understanding, the latter judges whether 
the draft in its current form is suitable for publication.

IMHO the best thing to do is to put whatever arguments you are 
mentioning from the list on to the draft.

FWIW I don't find any "argument against hybrid" in your referenced 
email. Eventually needing pure PQ in browsers is not a good motivation 
to publish *now*.

--

On the other hand, several concerns have been unaddressed: I am only 
summarizing mine (others have likely much better than mine):

 1. No introduction [0] ([2] for -07)
 2. Insufficient motivation [0] (Unclear motivation [2] for -07)
 3. No guidance on potential extensions [0] (more details in [1])
 4. Lack of formal analysis [0] and [3]

On point 4, this fancy crypto plainly breaks my proofs. Unless I am 
missing something, this draft seems to have somehow bypassed the FATT 
process. The drafts for FATT to my knowledge are listed here [4]. 
Admittedly, I have not been paying attention to PQ stuff until recently 
and it is very likely that I am missing something. I did search in 
archives for this [5,6], but it doesn't show anything relevant that this 
was sent to FATT. If not already, please send it for expert review of FATT.

Maybe we can just /park/ this draft until sufficient need arises and 
formal analysis is done.

-Usama

[0] https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/tls/LN4P8rqTwkhP5H7D2RH6mfM2zT8/

[1] https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/tls/Ou5Arxftu0FhOMFye6XjCMcRPhc/

[2] https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/tls/i2A1x7ujSBbFeG5vLeyg1dn45UQ/

[3] https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/tls/Yul6hw0gD-48n4CjCOthafKZ7Rc/

[4] https://github.com/tlswg/tls-fatt/pull/14/changes

[5] 
https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/browse/tls/?q=%22draft-ietf-tls-mlkem%22%20%22formal%22

[6] 
https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/browse/tls/?q=%22draft-ietf-tls-mlkem%22%20%22FATT%22

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