CRYPTO 2008 IACR BoD Meeting
--------------------------
In attendance:
Bart Preneel
Ed Dawson
Helena Handschuh
Tom Shrimpton
James Hughes
Shai Halevi
Tom Berson
Yvo Desmedt
David Pointcheval
Tsutomu Matsumoto
Ueli Maurer
Serge Vaudenay
Arjen Lenstra
Masahiro Mambo
Antoine Joux
Stuart Haber
Susan Langford
Jean-Jacques Quisquater
John Black
Kevin McCurley
Ozkan Boztas
The meeting commenced at 10am on August 17, 2008 in Santa Barbara.
The members introduced themselves. President Preneel began by calling
for additions to agenda; there were none.
Proxies:
Maurer for Damgard
Mambo for Okamoto
Boztas for Apohan
Matsumoto for Kim
Dawson for Batten
Berson for Cachin
Berson for Langford (in the afternoon)
Secretary Shrimpton called for additions/corrections to minutes from
EC'08. A member suggested that more detail be added to the minutes in
the future, perhaps including summaries of opinions. It was agreed
that a little more detail could be useful.
Actions/Matters from EC 2008 BoD Meeting
----------------------------------
Preneel mentioned that the proceedings from FSE 2004 are lost because
of a machine failure. Halevi noted that these could be downloaded
from Springer.
Hughes said we would contact the people who do the video recording for
the CRYPTO rump session to find out how much it would cost to record
all of the talks, too.
Report on CRYPTO08 (Langford)
----------------------------------
GC Langford reported that there were 331 paid attendees; she expected
that CRYPTO attendance will be down a bit from last year, but not too
much. She remarked that we will not be turning a large surplus this
year. Registration price was left the same as last year, with the
difference being made up by sponsorship ($6000 from Microsoft, $3000 from
Hewlett-Packard, $2000 from DE Shaw).
Regarding visa letters, there were no reports of being denied a visa
when requests were properly filed and on-time. One Middle Eastern
student author was denied due to a delay in paperwork.
Overall, 26 students requested support, which is an increase. All
students who requested support received support of some kind.
Qualcomm and PGP provided student support.
Treasurer's report (Handschuh)
-------------------------
Treasurer Handschuh's report was circulated via email beforehand.
Handschuh again mentioned the $75,000 gift from the Marconi society.
A member asked what was the normal turn-over for a year, Handschuh
answered about $850K (approx. $1M in 2007).
A goal for the year 2008 is to have budgets closer to break-even,
rather than taking in a large surplus. Also, to provide increased
student support.
Newsletter report (Hughes)
---------------------
Editor Hughes reported that he is currently working to bring
social-networking style features to the website (blogs, RSS feeds,
etc.) Also he is curious about adding a mechanism for ratings and
comments in the eprint section. Preneel asked Hughes to give a date
when the website would be ready. Hughes responded that by October 25
the website would be ready for a demonstration of "new look and feel".
Preneel noted that the current newsletter on the website is from
2006. Hughes said that he would take care of updating things
appropriately.
Preneel reminded GCs to send a short report to Hughes for the
newsletter.
JoC report (Maurer)
-------------------------------
Editor-in-Chief Maurer reported that he has been trying to get more
applied papers into the journal. He has received some proposals for
special issues. The CHES 2008 best papers will be solicited for
submission; this is currently done for CRYPTO, EC and TCC. A member
asked how many of the solicited papers are actually submitted. Maurer
estimated two-thirds. A member wondered what is the benefit to
readers of seeing a paper that they have already seen at a conference.
Various members pointed out that it allows for full versions, expanded
coverage, etc. Also that there is the perception that journal
articles are very carefully reviewed, whereas conference submissions
receive less review. It was suggested to find out how many IACR
members actually read the journal.
Preneel tabled the discussion until later in the meeting.
Membership secretary (Halevi)
------------------------
Secretary Halevi reported that membership numbers are almost identical
from 2007.
He noted that we now have an extra machine that is sitting unused, and
it would probably be gotten rid of soon if not used.
Archivist report (Preneel for Orman)
----------------------------
Preneel noted that 2006 conference proceedings should now be
available. A member noted that, in principle, it should be easier to
archive things now because many things are done electronically. He
said that he would add an interface for future program chairs to
forward proceedings to the archivist.
Program chairs are supposed to verify that all copyright forms are
returned and filled in correctly.
Fellows committee (Preneel for Yung)
-------------------------------
There are three new fellows this year (Maurer, Merkle, Naor). A
member wondered if we had a target "rate" for a number of fellows per
year; Preneel responded that the initial proposal for the fellows
program mentions a target of 5%, but that the fellows committee is
autonomous.
2009 Election committee (Hughes)
----------------------------
Chair Hughes noted that the nomination form is now on the website.
Three directors positions are open. The election this year will take
place via paper as before (not e-voting).
Database administrators report (McCurley)
---------------------------------
Administrator McCurley said that the publication database is live now,
but no external links have been exposed.
A question was asked about including eprint articles in the database.
McCurley said that these were there for completeness, and it is
possible (on some pages) to remove eprint from the returned entries.
Concerns were raised about double entries, names spelled differently
on different articles, etc. It was noted that there are easy things
that can be done to add value to the database; however, to provide
very high quality data would require a lot of work.
A member wondered how DBLP prepares their index. Apparently, from
Springer directly. This member also wondered if we could get the data from
Springer to populate the database; no one seemed interested to pursue
this.
E-voting committee (Haber)
----------------------
Haber reported for the committee. He reminded us that at EC'08 the
board asked for an opportunity to review candidate e-voting proposals.
These will be demonstrated on Tuesday afternoon; eight presentations
in all.
Haber noted that the board has not yet settled on an answer to the
question: what should we (the IACR) be doing re: e-voting?" Also, how
will what the IACR does affect public policy?
Many members voiced the opinion that voting should be easy for the
voters and have a very low risk of disaster. Regarding the impact on
public policy, there was concern that if the IACR adopts e-voting
(and, in particular, supports a specific e-voting mechanism), the
public may view this as evidence in favor of the broader use of
e-voting. A member remarked that the IACR's requirements are so
different from those of government elections, and we should stay as
far away as possible from real-world public policy.
Generally, the board agreed that we should proceed slowly and with
care. Time should be invested to carefully analyze proposed e-voting
mechanisms. Hughes noted that David Wagner, Ron Rivest and Josh
Benaloh will serve as outside evaluators. He also suggested that
there should be a written summary of the demonstration (produced by
the e-voting committee for the board), and the board agreed. A member
remarked that, for comparison to proposed e-voting schemes, it would
be good to know how many errors there are in the existing
(paper-based) scheme.
It was formally proposed that the e-voting subcommittee should produce
a summary recommendation within one month. This recommendation will
be for two systems, at most, to be run in a trial election. This
trial election should preferably take place by the end of the year,
Nov'08-Jan'09). This proposal passed unanimously.
There was some pessimism about the effect of e-voting on the number of
active voters; currently, voter "turn-out" is quite low.
Some members noted that one advantage of e-voting is that it might be
a vehicle to show that crypto is useful for other-than-obvious
applications.
JoC EiC Search committee (Desmedt)
-----------------------------
A report was circulated by email before the meeting, and Chair Desmedt
summarized the report.
Various board members expressed their support and appreciation for the
committee's work. There was a general consensus that the committee
had been diligent in its duties and had found good candidates. As
part of its process, the search committee had prepared a questionnaire
for the candidates, and these were reviewed by the board.
A member asked outgoing Editor-in-Chief Maurer how much time he
typically commits to the EiC position, for reference. Maurer
responded about 6-10 hours per month (doing all things himself). He
noted though that there are some start-up costs, and that initially he
spent something like two weeks getting things set up.
It was noted that the EiC is a long-term position requiring
substantial vision.
After deliberation, Matt Franklin was selected by the Board. (He
later accepted the position and was announced at the general
membership meeting.)
EC'08 GC report (Boztas for Apohan)
-----------------------------
Boztas read from a prepared statement (from EC'08 GC Apohan). He noted in
particular that EUROCRYPT'08 was successful at attracting Turkish
cryptographers, with 99 in attendance. He thanked the Sun, Anagram,
Tubitak and Erenet for their financial support, and also the IACR.
Steering Committee Reports
----------------------
o CHES'08 report (Quisquater) Attendance differences were noted: higher when
in Europe, lower when in US (in general). There is an overall upward
trend. The number of submissions are increasing; the acceptance rate
is approximately 30%.
o CHES SC: (Quisquater) CHES'09 Lausanne; CHES'10 Tokyo or UCSB (after
CRYPTO); CHES'11 Tokyo or UCSB (after CRYPTO).
o AC SC: (Matsumoto) The PC and GC met in Singapore to negotiate
with the candidate venues; the results of these meetings will be
reported in the December AC SC meeting. Preneel asked if there were
proposals yet for AC'11; they will appear at AC'08.
o TCC SC (Maurer) Two issues:
1) The TCC SC asked that the TCC PC not be required to sign the IACR
Guidelines but that the oversight of the program chair w.r.t. IACR
procedures would be the responsibility of the TCC steering
committee. After some discussion Preneel recommended that the PC
guidelines will be updated to accommodate the request.
2) TCC proposal for Israel. Maurer wondered if we should have a
back up location due to security concerns, financial risks, etc. A
member mentioned that the IACR does not support events in countries
that, as a matter of government policy, disallow people from entering
the country. The Malaysians handled this by agreeing to allow any
speakers into the country, and suggested that we try to get similar
commitments (via the TCC SC) from Israel. It was noted that in the
absence of this information, it is hard to know if IACR's policy
should be made more flexible. Maurer will ask the TCC proposers to
provide additional information for how these matters will be
handled.
o PKC SC (Desmedt) CFP for PKC'09 is out. A proposal for PKC'10 will
be out in a few months.
o FSE SC (Preneel) Nothing to report.
Report on AC'08 (Dawson for Batten)
-----------------------------
Vice President Dawson provided a brief summary report on
accommodations and costs. GC Batten estimates about 190 attendees.
The conference registration form will be available soon.
Report for EC'09 (Preneel for May)
---------------------------
Preneel reported that the budget is on track. There is substantial
sponsorship, including 50K Euros from the Horst G\"{o}rtz foundation.
Report on CRYPTO'09 (Black)
----------------------
GC Black reported that the conference dates are Aug 16-20; the PC
chair has already selected his committee and the CFP is available on
the website.
Report on AC'09 (Mambo for Okamoto)
------------------------------
Mambo reported that the conference will take place Dec 6-10 in Tokyo.
It was noted that the conference venue is not attached to a hotel, and
rooms have been blocked at hotels in the vicinity of the venue. It was
recommended that lower-priced lodging options should be listed on the
website.
EC'10 Proposals
-------------
The board heard two excellent proposals for the organization of EUROCRYPT'10.
There was some discussion of the dates, in particular that both
proposals were for late May or early June. A member noted that TCC,
FSE and PKC are in the late winter/early spring, and so it could be
nice for spacing to have a later EC date.
After consideration, the board voted to select the proposal of Olivier
Billet and Matt Robshaw for Nice, France.
FSE'09 (Preneel)
------------
Preneel reported this will be held the last week of February in
Leuven, in conjunction with NIST's first AHS workshop (presentation of
submissions). The venue will be finalized in mid-September, and the
CFP is out.
TCC'09 (Maurer for Boneh)
---------------------
Maurer had nothing to report at this time.
(It will take place March 15-17, in San Francisco, CA.)
PKC'09 (Desmedt for Jarecki)
----------------------
Desmedt reported it will take place in Irvine, CA, March 18-20. The
decision to place it back-to-back with TCC was made to make travel
arrangements easier for Europeans.
CHES'09 and '10 (Quisquater)
-----------------------
Quisquater gave a quick report on accommodations and the venue for CHES'09
(Lausanne). Chairs for CHES'09 were proposed and approved by the
board. (They are Christophe Clavier and Kris Gaj.)
Discussions
----------
CRYPTO'10 GC: Prior to the discussion, Preneel again noted that he was
not in favor of moving the conference to another venue. Logistically,
having the conference at UCSB is low-maintenance, and we may not be
able to return. Other members supported this viewpoint with personal
anecdotes of support provided by UCSB.
Zully Ramzan was selected as the GC of CRYPTO'10.
CRYPTO'10 PC chair: Several qualified candidates were nominated by the board.
After discussion and voting, Tal Rabin was selected.
EC'10 PC chair: Again, qualified candidates were nominated by the
board. A Chair was selected, and will be announced when they accept.
[Henri Gilbert subsequently accepted the position.]
ELECTRONIC PUBLISHING:
Preneel remarked that JoC is doing well and has high citation numbers,
and the degradation of LNCS will not hurt the JoC. LNCS has lost its
official status with Thompson and this is in particular an issue for
European academics. Unfortunately, we can essentially do nothing at
this stage because it is unclear how ranking and impact (proceedings
index) will be measured in the future -- LNCS as a whole, IACR only
(ie, IACR as a single unit), or conference-by-conference. Also, it is
unclear what service/value Springer provides at this point.
A member wondered why hasn't there been more adoption of open access?
He remarked that we are sending a lot of money to Springer and it
isn't clear that we are getting much value for that money. He has
been gathering requirements from people for a future piece of software
that would automate the process of collecting the submissions, the
reviewers comments, building the proceedings, archiving, etc.
Another member warned for caution, worrying that we might build
something that is useful only for "insiders", but not for
universities, hiring committees, etc. This member suggested that we
should wait for at least a year to see what ISI will do, and then
return to the question of what to do.
A member remarked that the way to elevate the impact of IACR research
is to raise awareness of our research in other communities. In
response, it was noted that we already make it reasonably easy for
people to find papers by placing them on webpages, etc., and that
the prime concern is recognition of individual work.
There was some discussion about ranking and indexing systems. It was
noted, for example, that pagerank is easily manipulated and is
diminishing in importance. Thompson's measure, too, is probably not a
good thing to be guided by because these measures change rapidly. The
problem is that there isn't a good source of info for this. There was
some agreement on this, and it was suggested that expert advice on
ranking/indexing systems was needed. A member opined that it there
needs to be an index of crypto papers, then the IACR should develop
its own index. Members responded that the problem is to compare
crypto publication venues to non-crypto ones.
Some members saw value in the pre- and post-proceedings model, noting
that several lower ranking conferences already do this. They publish
a pre-proceedings, and then more carefully refereed versions are
published (officially) later as a journal.
It was observed that USENIX now makes all publications openly available
and that, informally, it is "ranked" highly.
Maurer made a motion to appoint someone to focus on this issue.
Preneel, Haber, Desmedt, Hughes and McCurley will form a subcommittee
to investigate the matter further.
ON THE MATTER OF SERVING OTHER COUNTRIES/COMMUNITIES:
Preneel pointed out that becoming a member of IACR is difficult in
developing nations due to expenses and access to paper/electronic
materials (such as proceedings). It was suggested to have something
like a "corresponding member" status to regional organizations (eg.,
in India and China). These members might not get the JoC, for
example. It was also suggested to consider the IEEE regional
membership model.
Vaudenay reported that Africacrypt was successful and with a large
number of African nations represented.
Berson switched the topic to recognize trends that he has noticed:
- Decreasing relevance of Crypto, Eurocrypt, Asiacrypt and JCrypt to
industrial and governmental practitioners.
- Increasing online-ness and connectivity.
- Increasing hassles for travel, including expense, security
restrictions, visa problems. Terrorism has broken ease of travel.
- Many students and young people entering the field.
- Some dissatisfaction with UCSB as a steady venue for Crypto.
- Solid finances for IACR.
- Less-profitable conferences and workshops, in line with Board's
current guidance.
- Increasing reliance on hotels (vs. universities) as venues for
conferences and workshops. Lack of corporate memory and ability to
negotiate with hotels.
- Regional conferences in developing regions and nations, e.g.
Africacrypt, Indocrypt, Chinacrypt. Opportunity/challenge for IACR.
A member commented w.r.t the appearance of new conferences that some
think we have already too many conferences. He suggested the
possibility of collocating events. It was suggested to recommend to
the steering committees to try collocation.
MISCELLANEOUS:
Preneel mentioned the issue of "in cooperation with" status. In
particular that it regulates against scheduling conflicting events.
---
Meeting was closed at 6pm.