[Cryptography] NSA voting on TLS encryption at the IETF TLS WG

[Paul Wouters]

On Thu, 2 Jul 2026, Andrew Lee wrote:

> The Clipper chip failed because the very people that are right here, and others, fought it.
>
> It was a great win for the Cypherpunks.

I agree it was. We did a great job.

That doesn't mean that we should not force everyone to a single
algorithm combination. Perhaps you have now seen what a large
overlap between Cypherpunks and IETF there is, and that you
are not really getting a different response here than at IETF,
and that asking us with emotional pleas to perform ballot stuffing
of another organization that doesn't even have a ballot box, is
as inappropriate as lifting a single sentence from an IAB appeal
text to suggest to readers that the IAB granted an appeal when in
fact they denied that appeal (as did the IESG)

Paul Wouters (paul at cypherpunks.ca and also the IETF Security Area
Director for the first two years of this document's drama lifecycle)