[TLS] Re: New Liaison Statement, "Liaison communication to IETF regarding draft-ietf-tls-mlkem"

[Eric Rescorla <[e-mail]>]

On Fri, Apr 3, 2026 at 12:11 PM David Benjamin <[e-mail]>
wrote:

> On Fri, Apr 3, 2026 at 2:57 PM Eric Rescorla <[e-mail]> wrote:
>
>> On Fri, Apr 3, 2026 at 11:26 AM Russ Housley <[e-mail]>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> If the IETF does not publish such document in a way that other SDOs can
>>> cite them, then some other group will fill that void.  We know that the
>>> IEEE needs a document to reference.  I believe 3GPP and ITU-T are in the
>>> same situation.  In my view, another body filling that void would be bad
>>> for the IETF.  Maybe that is the point where we disagree,
>>>
>>
>> Perhaps. Consider the following hypothetical. Suppose that there was a
>> draft
>> that specified a ROT13-based AEAD, that it clearly captures the details
>> in an
>> interoperable manner, and that for some reason some other SDOs wanted to
>> publish documents that relied on that. Do you think the IETF should
>> publish
>> that document?
>>
>
> I mean, I did want to publish that as an April 1st RFC, but that's not the
> point. ;-)
>
> I'm not Russ, but no the IETF obviously should not publish that document,
> April 1st aside. However, if other SDOs *really* wanted to use that, they
> *should* give us that feedback. And if they did, I think the TLS WG would
> probably be able to manage simply telling them they are wrong for wanting
> ROT13, rather than trying to quibble over whether the SDOs can cite a draft
> instead.
>

Well I think as part of this message we would also say "and if you do
still want to do this, then in fact you can do so in one of the following
ways", which is what I think is happening here, at least in this part
of the discussion.

-Ekr