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[TLS] Re: WG Last Call: draft-ietf-tls-mlkem-08 (Ends 2026-07-08)

Aaron Gable <aaron@letsencrypt.org> Thu, 02 July 2026 15:21 UTC

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From: Aaron Gable <aaron@letsencrypt.org>
Date: Thu, 02 Jul 2026 08:20:55 -0700
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Subject: [TLS] Re: WG Last Call: draft-ietf-tls-mlkem-08 (Ends 2026-07-08)
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Hi all,

I support publication of this document. Although I am not subscribed to the
TLS list (largely out of a desire to spend my time getting work done
instead of reading re-treads of the same arguments), I am an active
participant and RFC author in the ACME and PLANTS working groups.

This document certainly has running code. I believe this document has also
achieved rough consensus: while full unanimity would be better, rough
consensus is the fallback
<https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc7282#section-3> (RFC 7282,
Section 3) for when objections have been raised, addressed, and yet
continue to be raised. The core objection is that this document appears to
endorse a protocol which some members of this WG consider less secure than
other available protocols. This objection has been addressed: the document
explicitly does not recommend the use of pure ML-KEM, it merely
standardizes it for interoperability. Further objections along this line,
raised by any number of people, are not indications of lack of consensus --
they are instead just an example of the scenario in which "five people for
and one hundred people against might still be rough consensus
<https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc7282#section-7>" (RFC  7282,
Section 7).

As RFC 7872 says, this working group has become pathological and fallen
into dysfunction. This call will be one of the hardest for the chairs to
make, but it is their job to sift out the potentially weak signal from the
huge amount of background noise. I believe there is sufficient evidence
that this document has achieved both rough consensus and running code, and
therefore should be published. I hope the chairs agree.

Aaron Gable

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