I am deeply disturbed by the openly hostile behavior of the AD towards honest 
good-faith participants, including but not limited to describing them as 
“malicious” simply for not agreeing with him on opinions or interpretation of 
WG chair emails.

I don’t believe that anyone on this list is acting maliciously, and have 
endeavored to express my stances based on their technical merit with full 
respect for everyone.

I ask that the chairs and especially ADs continue to act professionally, 
transparently and inclusively.

Nadim Kobeissi
Symbolic Software • https://symbolic.software

> On 25 Feb 2026, at 8:51 PM, Paul Wouters <[email protected]> 
> wrote:
> 
> On Wed, 25 Feb 2026, Nadim Kobeissi wrote:
> 
>> I'm encountering some concerning conduct from the AD regarding my blocking 
>> objection.
> 
> As other people explained to you, "blocking objection" is not a
> thing. Please read RFC 2026.  As such, I did not think this part needed
> further explanations.
> 
>> I've so far continued to receive off-list emails from the AD despite 
>> repeated explicit requests that they stop emailing me off-list and 
>> acknowledge my objection on-list, as well as address their inaccurate 
>> summary of [2].
>> 
>> The explanation provided by the AD to me (off-list, despite my explicit lack 
>> of consent) amounted to the following:
> 
> You did not quote other relevant context in the offlist email chain. For
> one, it started with:
> 
>    Sending this off list because there are already way too many off topic
>    emails in this thread....
> 
> I then explained how chartering works. You replied with an email that
> switched context completely:
> 
>    I’m still very concerned about your incorrect summarizing of
>    [2] as submitted in my blocking objection, and note that you
>    haven’t acknowledged my blocking objection as I requested or
>    clarified your potential misrepresentation.
> 
>    I would sincerely appreciate it if you could please address that instead
>    of sending me off list emails asking me how I think standards are made.
> 
> I replied:
> 
>           The paragraph above the one you quoted gives the context you are 
> looking
>           for, hence I figured it did not need an on list reply to an
>    already busy mail thread with lots of off topic or uninformed input.
> 
>    [...]
> 
> You replied:
> 
>    In case I wasn't clear: I'm not taking any messages off-list, and would
>    appreciate on-list answers.
> 
> To which I replied:
> 
>    As I stated in my reply:
> 
>            The paragraph above the one you quoted gives the context you are 
> looking
>            for, hence I figured it did not need an on list reply to an
>        already busy mail thread with lots of off topic or uninformed input.
> 
>    I stand by that evaluation.
> 
>> I am a bit disturbed to see that the AD resorted to sending me strange 
>> justifications for their interpretation of [2] despite it clearly stating 
>> that "In summary, we do not have consensus to publish the document as is. 
>> [...] The chairs will then redo a working group last call to see if there is 
>> rough consensus for publishing this document."
> 
> You are the second person maliciously reducing the quoted text from the
> TLS WG Chairs consensus call, which reads in full:
> 
> 
>    The working group last call for pure ML-KEM has concluded, thanks to
>    those that participated in the discussion. In summary, we do not have
>    consensus to publish the document as is.
> 
>    The largest number of participants wanted to publish the document as
>    is, however there was also a significant number that wanted changes
>    to the document before publication and a small, but vocal, number of
>    participants that do not want the document to be published at all.
>    There were several issues raised, but the main area of contention was
>    around having a statement on the security and applicability of this
>    mechanism versus the hybrid key mechanisms.
> 
>    Given this, the chairs will move the document back to the "WG Document"
>    state and ask the author to work on resolving the issues brought up on the
>    list including text to address concerns that there are reasons to prefer
>    hybrid over the pure approach. The chairs will then redo a working group
>    last call to see if there is rough consensus for publishing this document.
> 
> 
>> I encourage more transparent behavior from this WG, and for the issues I 
>> raise to be treated in a more transparent manner.
> 
> You have made your objection clear. Unless you have additional information
> that has not been shared on the list before, I think it would be good
> to reduce the number of emails you are sending, especially repeated "+1"
> emails on this specific topic that contain no new information.
> 
> 
> I would also like to remind people of our "Mail List Procedures"
> reminder that we send out every month in case you have not read it
> before or need a reminder:
> 
> https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/tls/cK9kc6MNdYTOfhiPU5vMdRy8mC0/
> 
> 
> 
> Thanks in advance.
> 
> Paul, speaking as AD.
> 
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