Re: Conflict of Interest: IETF and the NSA – Fwd: [Ssh] Complaint to SSHM chairs

On 20-Aug-26 07:06, Ken Kubota wrote:
...
> The recent situation -- including the moderation at the SSH list by Stephen Farrell [1] and the confirmation of a "PR action" by Security Area Director Deb Cooley, a former lifetime employee of the NSA

The phrase "a former lifetime employee" is intrinsically self-contradictory. Ignoring that, a _former_ employee is not in a conflict of interest precisely because of the meaning of the word "former".

Also, I see nothing in the declared funding source for https://tolerantnetworks.com/ to suggest an intrinsic conflict of interest. You would need to provide a lot more detail.

On 20-Aug-26 09:00, Ken Kubota wrote:

> a non-hybrid approach was forced through

You are referring, I think, to a document clearly labelled "Intended status: Informational" which has not yet been approved for publication as an RFC. So it _has not_ been forced through and in any case, if published as an Informational RFC, it will not be normative. In fact it is carefully phrased (now, which was not true of earlier drafts) so that it does not argue for a non-hybrid algorithm, it simple explains how you could choose to use one if forced to do so.

I find this to be a sound technical document that neither endorses nor opposes the use of non-hybrid PQ, and that is the right approach for the IETF to take. And precisely because of that, the question of conflict of interest seems irrelevant anyway.

Regards
     Brian Carpenter