IACR News Central

The 14th IACR International Conference on Practice and Theory of Public Key Cryptography (PKC'11) was held at the Hotel "Villa Diodoro" in Taormina, Italy, on March 6--9, 2011. The organizing committee included Rosario Gennaro (Program Chair), Nelly Fazio and Antonio Nicolosi (General co-Chairs), and Dario Catalano (Local Arrangements Chair).

The technical program featured 28 papers selected from 103 submissions, along with an invited lecture on "New Developments in Leakage-Resilient Cryptography" by Vinod Vaikuntanathan of Microsoft Research. The conference attracted 87 delegates (including 21 students) from 21 countries, mainly from Europe (50), Asia (17), North America (16). The social program included an optional excursion to attend the closing day of the local carnival celebrations (allegorical floats, costumed groups, fireworks and the burning of King Carnival).

The generous support of the conference sponsors was also an important factor for the success of the event, and is gratefully acknowledged.

Crypto 2011 was held on the campus of the University of California, Santa Barbara, from August 14-18. The Program Chair was Phillip Rogaway, and the General Chair was Thomas Shrimpton.

A total of 230 papers were submitted. Of these, 43 were accepted (two were merged in the program), with the paper "Computer-Aided Security Proofs for the Working Cryptographer", by Gilles Barthe, Benjamin Gregoire, Sylvain Heraud, and Santiago Zanella Beguelin, selected to receive the Best Paper award by the program committee.

The IACR Distinguished Lecture, entitled "Illegitimi Non Carborundum", was delivered by Ron Rivest. Roger Dingledine also give an invited talk, "Tor and Circumvention: Lessons Learned". Shai Halevi provided a tutorial lecture on fully homomorphic encryption.

Almost all of the talks --regular, tutorial, invited and distinguished-- were video recorded. These videos, along with the authors' slides, will soon be available from the conference program webpage. (Some videos are already available on YouTube.)

Dan Bernstein and Tanja Lange organized and co-chaired yet another entertaining Rump Session.

Attendance at Crypto 2011 was quite high, with 412 registered attendees, up from 335 at Crypto 2009, and not far off from the 451 that attended the collocated Crypto/CHES2010. The Program Committee's excellent, broader than usual program was likely the cause for the jump in attendance.

Generous donations from Qualcomm, Microsoft Research and Voltage Security, as well as continuing support from the Marconi Fund for Student Authors, were used to provide registration waivers and travel support for 42 students. The Chairs of Crypto 2011 are very grateful for the terrific work of Sally Vito and the UCSB conference services staff.

SAC 2011 was held August 11-12, 2011 in the Department of Computer Science, Ryerson University, Toronto, Canada. There were 72 participants from 18 countries. Moreover, the conference had received 92 submissions out of which 23 were accepted. The reception took place the night before the conference started and the banquet dinner, which was held on the first night of the conference, was located in The Trillium Ballroom of the Atlantis Pavilions, a spectacular site on the waterfront of Lake Ontario.

A digital version of the pre-proceedings was provided to the attendees and was also available online on the website of the conference. Revised versions of the accepted papers, along with two invited papers, are going to appear in the proceedings of the conference published by Springer. Kristin Lauter from Microsoft Research and Alfred Menezes from University of Waterloo delivered two invited talks on the topics of `Cryptographic Techniques for Securing the Cloud' and `Another Look at Tightness', respectively.

The co-chairs were Ali Miri and Serge Vaudenay, and the publicity and publication chair was Atefeh Mashatan who wish to gratefully acknowledge the sponsors of SAC 2011, including the Faculty of Engineering, Architecture, and Science and the Department of Computer Science Ryerson University, Fields Institute, and Certicom, for their enthusiastic and generous support.

Based in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire

Discover new solutions. Follow in the footsteps of one of our nation\'s greatest mathematicians.

One of Time Magazine\'s 100 Most Important People of the 20th Century, Alan Turing was a brilliant thinker most famous for his codebreaking in the Second World War. As we approach the centenary of his birth, it could be time for you to play a vital role in maintaining national security too.

Encryption is used in so many of the essential things we use in everyday life, that the threat is everywhere. So, as a GCHQ mathematician, you\'ll explore the increasingly complex problems of crypt to help keep our communications secure.

There aren\'t many places where your love of mathematics and problem solving will see you influencing Government, armed forces and law enforcement agency decisions. GCHQ is also one of the few places outside academia where you can practise advanced mathematical research across such a wide range of disciplines. Every day will bring a new challenge to stretch your intellectual ability. Your research will be supported by some of Europe\'s largest computers. And you\'ll share your knowledge with some of the nation’s top mathematical minds.

To apply, you should have, or expect to obtain by summer 2012, a 1st or 2nd class honours degree in mathematics, statistics, physics or other subject with significant mathematical content. Additional credit will be given for a Master\'s degree in a mathematical subject.

Based in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire

Discover new solutions. Follow in the footsteps of one of our nation’s greatest mathematicians.

One of Time Magazine’s 100 Most Important People of the 20th Century, Alan Turing was a brilliant thinker most famous for his codebreaking in the Second World War. As we approach the centenary of his birth, it could be time for you to play a vital role in maintaining national security too.

Encryption is used in so many of the essential things we use in everyday life, that the threat is everywhere. So, as a GCHQ mathematician, you’ll explore the increasingly complex problems of crypt to help keep our communications secure.

There aren’t many places where your love of mathematics and problem solving will see you influencing Government, armed forces and law enforcement agency decisions. GCHQ is also one of the few places outside academia where you can practise advanced mathematical research across such a wide range of disciplines. Every day will bring a new challenge to stretch your intellectual ability. Your research will be supported by some of Europe’s largest computers. And you’ll share your knowledge with some of the nation’s top mathematical minds.

To apply, you should have, or expect to obtain by summer 2012, a 1st or 2nd class honours degree in mathematics, statistics, physics or other subject with significant mathematical content. Additional credit will be given for a Master’s degree in a mathematical subject.