Hi,

I agree that simply deleting the text is the way to go.

Cheers,
- Ira

On Tue, Oct 28, 2025 at 3:38 PM Watson Ladd <[email protected]> wrote:

> Happy to delete if we can't find a better way to phrase it.
>
> On Tue, Oct 28, 2025, 12:13 PM Kris Kwiatkowski <kris=
> [email protected]> wrote:
>
>> I also think simply deleting the text is the way to go.
>>
>>
>> On October 28, 2025 6:38:55 PM GMT, Bas Westerbaan <bas=
>> [email protected]> wrote:
>>
>>> I concur.
>>>
>>> On Tue, Oct 28, 2025 at 6:48 PM Eric Rescorla <[email protected]> wrote:
>>>
>>>> I concur. I actually had thought we had agreed that the current text
>>>> shouldn't appear and then there was some attempt to converge on a
>>>> replacement, but that
>>>> didn't really work out, so we should just delete it and move forward.
>>>>
>>>> -Ekr
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Tue, Oct 28, 2025 at 10:24 AM Christopher Patton <
>>>> [email protected]> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> I'm also in favor of simply deleting the text.
>>>>>
>>>>> Chris P.
>>>>>
>>>>> On Tue, Oct 28, 2025, 10:19 David Benjamin <[email protected]>
>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> I also agree we should simply delete the text.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> It is irrelevant for ML-KEM. While the text says "if other algorithms
>>>>>> are used", if we ever do consider an algorithm where this matters, we can
>>>>>> always debate it then, with full context, and put it in *that* document,
>>>>>> where it would be more likely to be read by implementers anyway.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> PS: The formatting in that section is slightly odd. Should "Larger
>>>>>> public keys and/or ciphertexts", "Duplication of key shares", and
>>>>>> "Failures" (but delete that one) be subsections?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On Tue, Oct 28, 2025 at 5:49 AM Filippo Valsorda <
>>>>>> [email protected]> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> 2025-10-28 05:29 GMT+01:00 Viktor Dukhovni <[email protected]>:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> > >> I think there is consensus that there is no advise to give to
>>>>>>> implementers
>>>>>>> > >> to handle these failure cases. While we could use that to
>>>>>>> justify saying
>>>>>>> > >> nothing, my own preference is to at least have a sentence
>>>>>>> explicitely
>>>>>>> > >> saying that implementers should do nothing, in case
>>>>>>> implementers become
>>>>>>> > >> aware of these theortical failures and wrongly assume the
>>>>>>> specification
>>>>>>> > >> was not aware and thus "vulnerable" to these issues.
>>>>>>> > >>
>>>>>>> > >> Perhaps:
>>>>>>> > >>
>>>>>>> > >> Current:
>>>>>>> > >>     Some post-quantum key exchange algorithms, including ML-KEM
>>>>>>> > >>     [NIST-FIPS-203], have non-zero probability of failure,
>>>>>>> meaning two
>>>>>>> > >>     honest parties may derive different shared secrets. This
>>>>>>> would cause a
>>>>>>> > >>     handshake failure. ML-KEM has a cryptographically small
>>>>>>> failure rate; if
>>>>>>> > >>     other algorithms are used, implementers should be aware of
>>>>>>> the potential
>>>>>>> > >>     of handshake failure.  Clients MAY retry if a failure is
>>>>>>> encountered.
>>>>>>> > >>
>>>>>>> > >> New:
>>>>>>> > >>     Some post-quantum key exchange algorithms, including ML-KEM
>>>>>>> > >>     [NIST-FIPS-203], have non-zero probability of failure,
>>>>>>> meaning
>>>>>>> > >>     two honest parties may derive different shared secrets. This
>>>>>>> > >>     would cause a handshake failure. As with other similar
>>>>>>> failures
>>>>>>> > >>     (such as bit corruptions), Clients MAY retry if a failure is
>>>>>>> > >>     encountered. Due to the negliable rate of occurances of
>>>>>>> these
>>>>>>> > >>     failure events, the lack of a known feasable method and the
>>>>>>> > >>     additional risk of introducing new attack vectors when
>>>>>>> attempting
>>>>>>> > >>     to handle these events, it is RECOMMENDED for implementers
>>>>>>> to
>>>>>>> > >>     not specifically handle post-quantum key exchange shared
>>>>>>> secrets
>>>>>>> > >>     failures, and rely on the pre-existing code paths that
>>>>>>> handle
>>>>>>> > >>     derivation failures.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> It was my impression that there was rough consensus to drop the
>>>>>>> original
>>>>>>> text and say nothing instead, though the "New" text above is instead
>>>>>>> an
>>>>>>> acceptable overly-elaborate way of saying "nothing to see here, move
>>>>>>> along".
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Yeah, it looks to me like there is no consensus on the original
>>>>>>> text, in fact. Different people have different opinions on what to 
>>>>>>> replace
>>>>>>> it with, but that doesn't mean there is consensus on the original. I 
>>>>>>> think
>>>>>>> the bar to ship some text is WG consensus, not lack of consensus on
>>>>>>> alternatives. Does anyone actually support shipping the original text?
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Were there any strong objections to saying nothing? All I could see
>>>>>>> were "we could say nothing, or we could say [text]" which implies 
>>>>>>> support
>>>>>>> for saying nothing, as well.
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