This is an RFC with "recommended to implement = N" marked about how to do PQ TLS 1.3 in environemnts where hybrids are too expensive
I think the argument boils down to this, yeah.
I am not a cryptographer, nor I’m participating in IETF (yet :), but he does make a good argument on why sticking with a hybrid for the time being makes sense (in between of all the NSA tinfoil hat stuff). And from an outsider point of view, publishing this as an RFC would somewhat legitimize using ML-KEM alone even though it’s marked as Recommended: N. (I would rather prefer waiting until we can publish it as Recommended: Y instead!)
If there are environments where ECDHE-MLKEM is really that much more expensive than ML-KEM alone, could we figure out another hybrid construction instead? E.g. one that only uses SHA3, if that’s the problem.
Comments
I think the argument boils down to this, yeah.
I am not a cryptographer, nor I’m participating in IETF (yet :), but he does make a good argument on why sticking with a hybrid for the time being makes sense (in between of all the NSA tinfoil hat stuff). And from an outsider point of view, publishing this as an RFC would somewhat legitimize using ML-KEM alone even though it’s marked as Recommended: N. (I would rather prefer waiting until we can publish it as Recommended: Y instead!)
If there are environments where ECDHE-MLKEM is really that much more expensive than ML-KEM alone, could we figure out another hybrid construction instead? E.g. one that only uses SHA3, if that’s the problem.