Presently all post-quantum *key agreements* registered for TLS are
(essentially) ML-KEM. If ML-KEM is broken, then a TLS connection even using
SLH-DSA can be decrypted passively and can also be actively MitMed. From a
security standpoint, I see little value in using SLH-DSA over (hybrid)
ML-DSA unless you also use a different key agreement.

I'm not against SLH-DSA in TLS in the future, but it's very far down on the
priority list.

Best,

 Bas



On Tue, Jul 15, 2025 at 12:07 AM Sean Turner <[email protected]> wrote:

> We kicked off an adoption call for Use of SLH-DSA in TLS 1.3; see [0]. We
> called consensus [1], and that decision was appealed. We have reviewed the
> messages and agree that we need to redo the adoption call to get more input.
>
> What appears to be the most common concern, which we will take from Panos'
> email, is that "SLH-DSA sigs are too large and slow for general use in TLS
> 1.3 applications". One way to address this concern is to add an
> applicablity statement to address this point. We would like to propose that
> this (or something close to this) be added to the I-D:
>
> Applications that use SLH-DSA need to be aware that the signatures sizes
> are large; the signature sizes for the cipher suites specified herein range
> from 7,856 to 49,856 bytes. Likewise, the cipher suites are considered
> slow. While these costs might be amoritized over the cost of a long lived
> connection, the cipher suites specified herein are not considered for
> general use in TLS 1.3.
>
> With this addition in mind, we would like to start another WG adoption
> call for draft-reddy-tls-slhdsa. If you support adoption with the above
> text (or something similar) and are willing to review and contribute text,
> please send a message to the list. If you do not support adoption of this
> draft with the above text (or something similar), please send a message to
> the list and indicate why. This call will close at 2359 UTC on 28 July 2025.
>
> Cheers,
> Deirdre, Joe, and Sean
>
> [0] https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/tls/o4KnXjI-OpuHPcB33e8e78rACb0/
> [1] https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/tls/hhLtBBctK5em6l82m7rgM6_hefo/
> [2] https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-reddy-tls-slhdsa/
> _______________________________________________
> TLS mailing list -- [email protected]
> To unsubscribe send an email to [email protected]
>
_______________________________________________
TLS mailing list -- [email protected]
To unsubscribe send an email to [email protected]

Reply via email to