[TLS] Re: Fwd: New Version Notification for draft-usama-tls-risks-of-mlkem-01.txt

[John Mattsson <[e-mail]>]

My understanding of the discussion differs:

- This concerns KEMs in general and is independent of draft-ietf-tls-mlkem, ML-KEM, and PQ.
- The draft should therefore have been renamed. In fact, I do not think this work should be a draft. An academic paper, together with discussion on the TLS WG mailing list, seems more appropriate.
- A proof in the symbolic model would be valuable, but not required, as there are already other proofs supporting the security of KEM use in TLS 1.3.

My suggestion is that you, Nadim, and Nathanael collaborate on a formal ProVerif analysis of TLS 1.3 with KEMs exhibiting different security properties and report the results to the TLS WG once the work is complete.

I don’t think a formal FATT process should be started. I want X25519MLKEM758 published as soon as possible.

Cheers,
John Preuß Mattsson

From: Muhammad Usama Sardar <[e-mail]>
Date: Friday, 29 May 2026 at 12:38
To: [e-mail] <[e-mail]>
Subject: [TLS] Fwd: New Version Notification for draft-usama-tls-risks-of-mlkem-01.txt


Dear Joe and Sean,

I believe I have collected sufficient attestations from the WG that a new proof is required for draft-ietf-tls-mlkem.

As I understand, apart from me, there are at least 2 other WG participants (Nadim [0] and Nathanael [1]) who are already doing or have volunteered to do independent formal analysis in ProVerif. I take that as a strong attestation that there is enough WG energy to do the work.

So with these attestations, I would like to request the initiation of the FATT process for draft-ietf-tls-mlkem. I believe it would be good to have FATT's evaluation of the artifacts that would be eventually developed by these efforts. Thank you for your kind consideration.

In addition, I believe all concerns have been addressed in this version. Summary of major changes is:

  *   Added justification based on the FATT process: Section 4
  *   Reorganization, specially in motivation (Section 1.1)
  *   Added some common arguments: Section 6
  *   Comparison with hybrid ML-KEM in Section 4.1
  *   Clarification of what "breaking" means in Section 3

For those who haven't had a chance to check the draft yet, more feedback on Sec. 3 and 4 is very welcome. For discussion of details of modeling, please contact me off-list.

Best regards,

-Usama

[0] https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/tls/pZe6luYQeT4GhbOc1FE1xi-Lmzc/

[1] https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/tls/S5QioGFa3T3AFWIAjsNg8BFy5Co/


-------- Forwarded Message --------
Subject:
New Version Notification for draft-usama-tls-risks-of-mlkem-01.txt
Date:
Fri, 29 May 2026 03:02:54 -0700
From:
[e-mail]<mailto:[e-mail]>
To:
Muhammad Sardar <[e-mail]><mailto:[e-mail]>, Muhammad Usama Sardar <[e-mail]><mailto:[e-mail]>


A new version of Internet-Draft draft-usama-tls-risks-of-mlkem-01.txt has been
successfully submitted by Muhammad Usama Sardar and posted to the
IETF repository.

Name: draft-usama-tls-risks-of-mlkem
Revision: 01
Title: Potential Risks of Standalone ML-KEM in TLS 1.3
Date: 2026-05-29
Group: Individual Submission
Pages: 16
URL: https://www.ietf.org/archive/id/draft-usama-tls-risks-of-mlkem-01.txt
Status: https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-usama-tls-risks-of-mlkem/
HTML: https://www.ietf.org/archive/id/draft-usama-tls-risks-of-mlkem-01.html
HTMLized: https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-usama-tls-risks-of-mlkem
Diff: https://author-tools.ietf.org/iddiff?url2=draft-usama-tls-risks-of-mlkem-01

Abstract:

We attest that standalone ML-KEM in TLS 1.3 breaks the existing
formal proofs of TLS in state-of-the-art symbolic security analysis
tool, ProVerif. In this draft, we show *exactly* where the ProVerif
proofs break, namely transition from symmetric DHKE to asymmetric
KEM. More specifically, the existing proofs of TLS in ProVerif are
based on commutativity property, whereas commutativity does not apply
to standalone ML-KEM in TLS.

We also attest that from a formal analysis perspective, this is a
much bigger change than RFC8773bis, which indeed went for FATT review
(cf. [TLS-FATT]). We, therefore, formally request the chairs to
initiate the FATT review of standalone ML-KEM in TLS. A few WG
participants have already volunteered to do formal analysis in
ProVerif.

This draft also offers some preliminary discussion to help the
developers and policy makers make informed choices. Finally, the
draft also aims to reduce the endless repitition of arguments from
both sides presented on several lists by documenting these arguments
so they can simply be referred to.



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