Hi Ken, I just wanted to point out the irony of directing Eliot to view an off-list email regarding the importance of keeping the emails on-list. I’ll trust you that such an email may violate the IETF standards for posting.
Given how much you care about this, I assume you’ll want to file a complaint for the offlist email by the (unnamed) “leading cryptographer” that was sent to Eliot. As a show of good faith in your interests, I would support any such complaint filed with the IETF. Feel free to reach out to me if you would like assistance with filing it. Best, Mark Sent from my iPhone > On Jul 14, 2026, at 7:57 AM, Ken Kubota <[email protected]> wrote: > > I am highlighting an evident conflict of interest, not attacking the > individuals themselves. > > This is part of a technical debate, particularly if such a massive presence > of SIGINT operatives is active within this working group [1] and if their > behavior is suspect, e.g., openly accepting or ignoring violations of > standard cryptographic practices already described in earlier RFCs, other > governmental standards (e.g., Germany's BSI, the NIST equivalent), and > protocols (OpenSSH). I had cited the RFC, the BSI standard, and OpenSSH > announcements in my public response to the NSA official [2]. Neither he nor > anyone else on this mailing list has provided a plausible rationale. > > The larger the conflict of interest, the larger, unfortunately, the > proportion of the debate devoted to analyzing this. There is already a > double-digit number of SIGINT operatives present here (NSA, GCHQ, CSE), and > these are only those identified so far. All of them vote only and do not > engage in any debate, except for one [2], who also subsequently fell silent > as the contradictions became too glaring. It is concerning that some > individuals fail to address this issue. This might also indicate additional > conflicts of interest. > > So please do not conflate a discussion regarding conflicts of interest with a > personal attack. The focus is clearly on the conflict of interest (and > including related aspects, e.g., obvious bias or actions that may be > interpreted as such). > > Please always post publicly to the mailing list in line with IETF standards. > You were reminded yesterday in an offlist email by a leading cryptographer > not to allow the debate to shift from the public forum to private channels. > Often, such attempts are part of a broader strategy to manipulate discourse. > Framing a conflict-of-interest debate as an ad hominem attack is also > inappropriate. > > Kind regards, > > Ken Kubota > > ____________________________________________________ > > Ken Kubota > https://doi.org/10.4444/100 > > > > [1] https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/tls/lnSPh3Wr6vgdjivHGj1mxCun3Rs/ > "This would imply: > - U.S. intelligence service: 6 > - UK intelligence service: 3 > - Canadian intelligence service: 2" > > [2] https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/tls/vFu5iq8gPQFByj4L0hkCEAJUR9I/ > > > >> Am 14.07.2026 um 10:23 schrieb Eliot Lear <[email protected]>: > > _______________________________________________ > TLS mailing list -- [email protected] > To unsubscribe send an email to [email protected] _______________________________________________ TLS mailing list -- [email protected] To unsubscribe send an email to [email protected]
