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

[David Benjamin <[e-mail]>]

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. And I don't think the TLS WG would have to then be terribly
worried about losing legitimacy to a newly formed ROTLS13 Standards
Consortium.

That is... not quite what's going on here.

David