[TLS] Re: Discussion about the Deployment Decision

[Sophie Schmieg <[e-mail]>]

Hi Paul,

first off, given your now repeated pattern of showing disrespect to people
based on their perceived gender, and going back to the previous
conversation topic of proper use of honorifics, I will have to insist that
you will address me by my last name and honorific from now on. In other
words, that's "Dr. Schmieg" to you. Let us hope for both our sake's that
this helps you with your unconscious biases to make the discussion less
personal.
Secondly, it seems that your foray into predicate logic is even more
precarious than your larger expedition into the field of cryptography. My
stance has been very consistent: I generally consider the non-normative
recommendations parts of IETF documents of lesser importance and am willing
to compromise rather quickly on them, if it helps the standard to emerge
more quickly. I further consider a recommendation flag, following the
language laid out in RFC 2119 to be preferable to the exercise in mathiness
(great term, by the way) of attempting to model expected utility. Both are
rather silly, given that we are talking about a handful of implementers
most of whom are present on this list, but one is a lot sillier than the
other. In other words, my preferences admit a clearly documented
well-ordering.
But even if they didn't, as Dennis pointed out to you in his first email,
standardization is a wicked problem
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wicked_problem>, and behind the dry
technical documents is a process best described as a social coordination
problem, as studied by sociologists and even, when they are especially
talented, economists. As such applying predicate logic to the statements on
this email list will at best make Wittgenstein cry, and certainly not solve
any underlying disagreements.

Best,
Dr. Sophie Schmieg

On Mon, Aug 3, 2026 at 8:09 AM Salz, Rich <rsalz=[e-mail]>
wrote:

>
> I’m confused.  Paul, what do you want to happen? Do you understand the
> IETF workflow and what “IETF last call” means in terms of process?
>
> Do you know what RECOMMENDED=N means? Quoting [1]:
>
> If the "Recommended" column is set to "N", it does not necessarily
> mean that it is flawed; rather, it indicates that the item either
> has not been through the IETF consensus process, has limited
> applicability, or is intended only for specific use cases. If the
> "Recommended" column is set to "D," the item is discouraged and
> SHOULD NOT or MUST NOT be used, depending upon the situation;
> consult the item's references for clarity.
>
> The IETF expresses an opinion by saying “RECOMMENDED=N”. Many in the IETF
> recognize that others — often those deploying and purchasing systems — will
> have a different opinion.
>
>
> [1] https://www.iana.org/assignments/tls-parameters#tls-parameters-8
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-- 

Sophie Schmieg | Information Security Engineer | ISE Crypto |
[e-mail]