================================ IACR Board of Directors Meeting, Eurocrypt 2010 ================================ Date: Sunday, 30 May 2010 Time: 10:00am - 6:00pm Venue: Hotel Nice Riviera, 45 rue Pastorelli, 06000 Nice Officers: Bart Preneel Dec 2010 President Ed Dawson Dec 2010 Vice President Thomas Shrimpton Dec 2010 Secretary Helena Handschuh Dec 2010 Treasurer Elected Directors: Christian Cachin Dec 2010 Director Tsutomu Matsumoto Dec 2010 Director David Pointcheval Dec 2010 Director Josh Benaloh Dec 2011 Director Stuart Haber Dec 2011 Director Antoine Joux Dec 2011 Director x Tom Berson Dec 2012 Director David Naccache Dec 2012 Director Serge Vaudenay Dec 2012 Director Appointed Directors: Christopher Wolf Dec 2012 Newsletter Editor Shai Halevi Dec 2011 Membership Secretary Matt Franklin Dec 2011 JoC Editor Conference General Chairs: Olivier Billet Dec 2010 GC EC2010 Zulfikar Ramzan Dec 2010 GC CR2010 San Ling Dec 2010 GC AC2010 Helger Lipmaa Dec 2011 GC EC2011 Tom Shrimpton Dec 2011 GC CR2011 Hyoung-Joong Kim Dec 2011 GC AC2011 Steering Committee Representatives: Tsutomu Matsumoto Asiacrypt David Pointcheval PKC X Ivan Damgaard TCC Bart Preneel FSE Jean-Jacques Quisquater CHES Others: X Hilarie Orman Archivist X Kevin McCurley Database Administrator Opening Matters =========== Welcome participants - identification of proxies Proxies: Handschuh for Berson Review and approve agenda The agenda was approved without modification. Approve Minutes from last meeting The minutes were approved without modification. Actions/Matters Arising from last meeting President Preneel quickly reviewed the actions from the last meeting. Preneel noted that there is outstanding the action to make a minor update to the PC guidelines to reflect special reporting status for TCC. Also, to reflect the new rolling PC chair system. Shai Halevi reported that he recently received input from the leader of the Chinese cryptography research organization, and that something may soon be in place to allow access to the Springer reading room. The Indian organization has not yet responded. Eurocrypt 2010 status GC Robshaw reported on some of the issues related to EC'10. Originally, the Acropolis Nice was the intended venue (with contracts signed). However, on Feb. 15 the GC was informed that the venue would instead be used by the French government (for the Sommet Afrique-France) and the contract was nullified. The Acropolis made efforts to assist the GCs by suggesting alternative venues. But the alternatives did not appeal to the GCs for various reasons, in particular because they might compromise the technical quality of the conference. The GCs endeavoured to find an alternative within Nice, but were unsuccessful (largely because the Sommet had booked many hotels). The final choice is the Grimaldi forum in nearby Monaco. The GCs went to considerable effort to minimize the impact on the attendees and the technical content; some times were adjusted to allow for attendees staying in Nice to arrive in Monaco for the sessions, and the reception was rescheduled from the traditional Sunday evening to Monday evening. Approximately 390 attendees are expected. The event received external sponsorship of approximately 28K Euros (despite financial downturn). On the whole, GC Robshaw expected a small financial loss. A member asked if the Acropolis had provided any compensation (other than refunding the original monies) and the GC said they had not. The GCs did ask for compensation at least to cover the extra cost of transportation, but found that substantial legal efforts would be required to pursue this matter. The entire BoD thanked the GCs for their admirable efforts with a round of applause. A member suggested that the GC guidelines should be updated with some advice on how to manage such matters in the future (a one-day cancellation happened when Asiacrypt was held in Chennai, India.) Officer's Reports for approval =================== Treasurer Treasurer Handschuh reported strong financial support from sponsors despite the financial downturn, and also that the IACR events continue to be well attended. (CHES'09 set a new attendance record.) The IACR overhead expenditures remain below 2% of costs. She noted that the effects of recent currency fluctuations, particularly the Euro to USD exchange rates, have been smoothed out by the IACR. The IACRs budget reserves remain healthy. The IACR continues to provide conference registration waivers for student speakers at the three flagship conferences via the Marconi grant. (Originally 70K USD, and approximately 3-5K is used per conference.) It was proposed to reduce membership fees, but the conversation was tabled because there are related topics for later discussion; in particular distribution methods for the Journal of Cryptology and conference proceedings. Appointees Reports for information ======================= Newsletter Editor Wolf reported that he had been flooded with requests to participate in the reviewing of books. All systems are functioning smoothly, and several upgrades are in the pipeline. A member asked if it would be possible to gather some kind of usage statistics from our website (in particular, for the viewing of videos of talks at IACR events.) Cachin stated that anyone interested in posting videos should speak to him. JoC Editor in Chief EiC Franklin reported that the transition from EiC Maurer is proceeding smoothly, only a few older submission remain in Maurer's queue. Franklin has been handling new submissions, of which there are many, and the overall quality of submissions remains high. Membership Secretary Secretary Halevi reported that the membership numbers are consistent with previous years, showing continuing modest growth. He reported that about 25% of members are students. There are no new online services, but existing services continue to run smoothly. As an informational matter, he reminded that the IACR should be aware that we must comply with the "Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard"; even though we do not keep the numbers, we do process them and so there is some transient storage of numbers. Archive (Preneel obo Orman) Preneel reported that we have received from Springer the copyright forms for various IACR events that were previously missing (AC'02, Crypto'03, AC'03, FSE'04, FSE'06 and Crypto'06). Archivist Orman noted that the copyright forms for EC'03, PKC'04, CHES'05 are missing. Members agreed to help to facilitate the gathering of these materials by contacting the PC chairs. Internal Committee Reports for information =============================== Fellows Committee (Preneel obo T. Okamoto) Preneel reported that five new fellows were appointed this year, all of whom (except Damgaard and Quisquater) will receive their plaques at EC'11. Okamoto (on behalf of the fellows-selection committee) noted that some fellows are no longer active members of the community; in fact, they have not been members for some time. The current IACR fellows program has a rule to expire the fellow status for such fellows, and the committee requested that the IACR board drop this rule from the fellows program. There was some discussion about this topic -- should fellows be expired if they are not active? There was a recommendation to offer lifetime gratis membership when someone is made a fellow (possibly without some membership amenities such as the Journal). A member suggested that the rules ought to be changed so that fellowship does not expire. Members expressed concerns about having to pay (for membership) in order to remain a fellow. The consensus opinion was to give lifetime membership to fellows, unless they decide they do not want this. As far as implementation, there are lower level details to consider (for example, for voting, also administration of the membership database). The board agreed to remove the expiration rule and consider conferring lifetime membership to fellow, pending further discussion with the fellows committee. e-Voting Committee Benaloh, Halevi and Haber reminded the board of the process to date. There were eight proposed e-voting systems, two of which were invited to present to the IACR board at Crypto'09 (PunchScan and Helios). Of these, only Helios performed a demonstration of the system. Both systems were invited to perform a demonstration for the entire membership; Punchscan declined, Helios accepted. The Helios test ran with questions serving as something of a straw poll on issues of interest to members (379 members participated, versus 325 on the last paper election). Overall, things went very well and the Helios team worked closely with the e-voting committee to ensure smooth execution of the test. A member noted that there was a technical detail regarding browsers that do not accept cookies. Halevi noted that there were a few small issues that Helios has agreed to address, and that members should report additional comments and concerns to the e-voting committee. He noted that a number of users complained about having to use Java, and that this is a non-trivial issue that must be addressed (i.e. to offer an alternative). The committee stated that these issues should be addressed prior to carrying out an official IACR election. The informal recommendation of the committee is to move forward with e-voting for IACR elections, but specifically only for IACR elections. To stress this to the public, the committee suggest a formal statement noting the IACR's position that our holding electronic elections is not an endorsement of this particular technology for public elections. The committee moved for a vote on the following statement: "The Board recommends that the IACR membership approve the following: The IACR will adopt the Helios remote e-voting system for future IACR elections, after correcting issues that arose during the recent demo election; this includes the provision of a solution for non-Java clients. At the same time, the IACR will clearly publish a statement that its use of this system does not constitute an endorsement of this or other remote-voting systems for public-sector elections." With one abstention (and no votes against), the motion passed. Preneel thanked the committee for their considerable effort, and for their excellent report. (The e-voting committee has prepared a detailed written report.) Appointments ========= Election Committee Preneel noted that this is an election year with large number of positions at stake -- all officers and three directors. He asked for volunteers for the committee: Vaudenay, Benaloh and Quisquater agreed to serve. Conferences since last BoD Meeting ======================= Crypto 2009 (Preneel obo Black) There was no official report. Asiacrypt 2009 (Matsumoto obo E. Okamoto) GC Matsumoto briefly summarized the conference statistics. He noted that all presentation slides from the rump session are available online; slides and videos from the talks will be published pending author approval. Forthcoming Conferences for information =========================== Crypto 2010 GC Ramzan has circulated a report recently, but the board had not yet had time to digest it for discussion. Asiacrypt 2010 GC Ling reported that the Swissotel venue is now confirmed (all contracts signed). He provided a breakdown of costs, as well as projections. A small loss is projected at this time, although additional sponsorship may offset this. GC Ling noted that the Singaporean government has offered 11K Singaporean Dollars of support, subject to the requirements that 1) there be at least 210 attendees, and 2) a full audit of the budget is carried out. The latter would cost approximately 7K SD. Thus the GCs position is that we should respectfully decline the offer. Eurocrypt 2011 GC Lipmaa reported on the preparations for EC'11. Currently, two hotels are booked (Swissotel and Radisson), but a final decision has not yet been made. [Note: after the meeting, the Sokos hotel Viru was finalized as the venue.] Asiacrypt 2011 GC Kim reported on preparations for AC'11. The conference hotel will be the Shilla Hotel in Seoul (owned by Samsung); the contract is already signed. Steering Committee Reports and Workshop Proposals (45) ===================================== Asiacrypt Steering Committee The Steering committee recommends Xuejia Lia's proposal for AC 2012. TCC report, TCC 2011 proposal for approval (Preneel obo Damgaard) (15) A formal report was forwarded by Damgaard in advance of the meeting. There is a proposal for TCC'11 to be at Brown University. With one abstention, the proposal was approved. PKC 2010 report Pointcheval reported on PKC'10, just held in Paris. There were a record number of submissions and attendees. It was noted that one factor contributing to the large number of attendees is the collocation (close in time, and reasonably close in location) of PKC with EC. He asked about guidelines for the delivery of invitation letters. Preneel suggested to follow the usual "policy" to trust the judgement of the GC on this matter. There was a brief side discussion about the handling of speaker authorization forms for videoing of presentations. Cachin suggested that Pointcheval work with him to handle the forms. Pointcheval noted that PKC'11 will be held in Sicily. FSE 2010 report Preneel reported that Vincent Rijmen is now the chair of the steering committee (taking over from Lars Knudsen.) A report from the program chair to the board has been circulated. CHES report, CHES 2011 proposal for approval Quisquater gave a short report on CHES'09. He also reported quickly on the JoC special issue on cryptographic hardware. For CHES'10, Quisquater summarized the preparations. CHES is collocated with Crypto this year, so some special efforts were required to coordinate things properly. (Also, FDTC and a NIST SHA3 workshop are held shortly afterwards.) There is a proposal for CHES'11 to be held in Japan. With one abstention, the proposal was accepted by the board. Conference Proposals for discussion/selection (30) ============================================= Asiacrypt 2012 (30) Xuejia Lai presented a proposal to hold AC'12 at the Beijing Friendship Hotel in Bejing, China. (This is the same location as AC'98.) There was some discussion about an appropriate fee for students, and relatedly the expected number of Chinese students. The board thanked Lai for his presentation. The board voted unanimously to accept the proposal. With one abstention, the proposal was accepted by the board. Conference Chairs ============ Program chairs reports Benaloh reported that there was nothing unusual to report. Eurocrypt 2012 Program Chair The board deliberated over several excellent candidates, and the President will approach the selected candidate after the meeting. [David Pointcheval subsequently accepted.] Asiacrypt 2012 Program Chair The board deliberated over several excellent candidates, and the President will approach the selected candidate after the meeting. [Xiaoyun Wang subsequently accepted.] Strategy ====== IACR Publication strategy Continuing our discussion from the Crypto'09 meeting, Preneel reminded the board of the key questions regarding the IACR's publication policy. These concern access, scientific credit (especially indexing and citations), and distribution channels. He summarized the position of the JoC as a scientific publication: it continues to have good impact (Impact factor: 2.265 in 2008), and it is viewed as a strong publication. He reminded that the IACR owns the copyright, but that content is not made freely available to non-members. Next, he explained in some detail that changing our publication strategy is a complex decision that involves matters of format (paper or online), access (free on the web, open access, open choice, reading room with password for members, pay-per-paper, etc.), citations and indexing, and cost. There is a clear trend towards more general access and away from paper. Alternatives to Springer Verlag should be considered. Preneel suggested that he should have a direct discussion with Springer about the board's deliberations and feelings on the issue of the conference proceedings, and the board agreed. Also, we need to determine more fully who holds the copyrights for the Journal for various years. Finally, the board will attempt to have a concrete proposal from USENIX by the Crypto'10 meeting. Several members offered opinions upon the linkage between the cost of the Journal and proceedings, and the membership fee. For example, having one membership option that provides a mailed, paper copy of the journal, and one that does not. (This particular option idea seemed popular.) On the matter of reducing membership fees in general, the board was in favor of reducing the fees. As a concrete proposal, the Treasurer suggested reducing to $70 for non-student members, $35 for student members. After discussion, the board voted unanimously for this reduced fee structure. Discussion of copyright forms ==================== Joux wanted a discussion of the IACR copyright form, which currently has two sections and with which a small number of authors have taken issue. After a brief discussion, it was agreed that the copyright form will be amended to allow for special dispensation from the IACR president if authors have explicit disagreements with the current form. Future scheduling of workshops Preneel put forth the opinion that the IACR has too many events. This results in a large amount of scheduling overhead, requires extra travel of members, and has an environmental impact. This year we have two examples of collocation (CHES/Crypto and, to a lesser extent, PKC/EC), but no such future collocations are planned. He opened the floor to discuss options for the scheduling of future workshops. Members suggested collocation, but noted that in general this is somewhat difficult because events move (e.g., PKC in Europe, then the US, then Asia). There were also concerns that authors will be forced to choose which of the collocated events they will submit to. There was some discussion of parallel tracks. This idea had some support, but it was noted that this may not be popular among the general membership. A member suggested as a compromise to try parallel tracks at one of our flagship conferences. Another suggestion was to have (say) a Crypto main track, and in parallel a PKC-like track or an FSE-like track. Preneel asked the various steering committees (all of which were represented) to discuss this with their members. Several members added that the steering committees should be encouraged to consider collocation in the future. Logistically, it was noted that such an option might force the workshops to move substantially on the calendar from year to year. There were also concerns about how a PC chair should implement this, or other parallel track schemes. The board agreed that this is a matter requiring additional thought and discussion, so they agreed to continue their deliberations at the Crypto'10 meeting. (This also allows time to see how the CHES/Crypto collocation experiment unfolds.) Ethical guidelines Preneel opened the discussion by noting that other organizations, such as the IEEE, have clear and explicit rules concerning the ethics of reviewing papers for publication. At this point, much of our community's ethics are folklore. He suggested that junior reviewers, in particular, could benefit from a short document that makes explicit at least some of the basic ethical guidelines. Haber agreed that the ethics committee (Haber, Orman, Vaudney, Benaloh) will provide a short draft document at the Crypto'10 meeting. The meeting was closed at 6:00pm.