I also think simply deleting the text is the way to go. 

On October 28, 2025 6:38:55 PM GMT, Bas Westerbaan 
<[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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