Last week on Hide & Speak, djb explained his seatbelt analogy for post-quantum cryptography. Car makers try hard to keep cars from crashing, and crashes still happen: brake failures, driver mistakes, something jumping out from the side of the road. Seatbelts exist because reducing damage matters even when prevention fails.

The crash here is a post-quantum system that turns out breakable through a spec problem, a software bug, or a timing attack leaking secret information. That has already happened multiple times. Keeping elliptic curves underneath is cheap, and it means one bug does not turn into millions of exposed keys.

The IETF is currently weighing solo ML-KEM in the TLS standard. The action page explains the fight and links the TLS mailing list where you can register opposition: [https://action.cr.yp.to/](https://action.cr.yp.to/)



Full recorded livestream: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qPhoJQtvgUo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qPhoJQtvgUo)

Episode written summary: [https://s.vp.net/34waj](https://s.vp.net/34waj)



The seatbelt argument for hybrid post-quantum encryption: keep elliptic curves underneath ML-KEM | Daniel J. Bernstein on Hide & Speak