Preface, IACR Theory of Cryptography (TCC) 2012

TCC 2010, the 7th Theory of Cryptography Conference, was held at ETH Zürich, Zürich, Switzerland, from February 9 to 11, 2010. TCC 2010 was sponsored by the International Association of Cryptologic Research (IACR) and was organized in cooperation with the Information Security and Cryptography group at ETH Zürich. The General Chairs of the conference were Martin Hirt and Ueli Maurer.

The conference received 100 submissions, of which the Program Committee selected 33 for presentation at the conference. The Best Student Paper Award was given to Kai-Min Chung and Feng-Hao Liu for their paper Parallel Repetition Theorems for Interactive Arguments . These proceedings consist of revised versions of those 33 papers. The revisions were not reviewed, and the authors bear full responsibility for the contents of their papers. In addition to the regular papers, the conference featured two invited talks: Secure Computation and Its Diverse Applications , given by Yuval Ishai and Privacy-Enhancing Cryptography: From Theory Into Practice , given by Jan Camenisch. Abstracts of the invited talks are also included in this volume.

As in previous years, TCC received a steady stream of high-quality submissions. Consequently, the selection process was very rewarding, but also very challenging, as a number of good papers could not be accepted due to lack of space. I would like to thank the TCC Steering Committee, and its Chair Oded Goldreich, for entrusting me with the responsibility of selecting the conference program. Since its inception, TCC has been very successful in attracting some of the best work in theoretical cryptography every year, and offering a compelling program to its audience. I am honored I had the opportunity to contribute to the continuation of the success of the conference.

I wish to thank all the people who contributed to the conference. Many thanks to the authors of all submitted papers, whose work is the very reason for TCC to exist. I am grateful for the dedication of the Program Committee members, who spent countless hours reviewing and discussing the submissions, to determine which papers to include in the program, and to provide the authors with useful feedback. I also thank the many external reviewers who assisted the Program Committee in its work. Thank you to past TCC chairs Ran Canetti, Salil Vadhan and Omer Reingold, who promptly answered my questions each time I needed their advice. Special thanks to Shai Halevi, who wrote a wonderful software package to facilitate all aspects of the PC work. I am very grateful to TCC 2010 General Chairs Martin Hirt and Ueli Maurer without whom the conference would have not happened. Thanks also to our corporate Sponsors, Credit Suisse, Microsoft Research and Omnisec. Finally, thanks to the Springer LNCS editorial staff, including Alfred Hofmann, Frank Holzwarth, and Anna Kramer, for their assistance in assembling these proceedings.

December 2009                             Daniele Micciancio