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Why not just XOR them? Is the reason we use HKDF is so if one or both is only partially broken (only some bits or some correlation) instead of fully broken we still benefits from the information that is still there?

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With an XOR, if you can control bits on one of the inputs, you can deterministically change one of the bits on the outputs. That is not the case with an HKDF.

Honestly, for all I know, they do XOR them. I didn't look carefully at how CECPQ2 works! Just: there's very straightforward joinery for running two key agreements and combining them so they both have to succeed to arrive at the session secret.

Later

(Leaving this comment here in perpetuity as evidence that I didn't think about your question as hard as David Adrian did. The message still holds, and that message is: "big ol' shrug".)

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