President's Message
This issue of the IACR newsletter marks a turning point in the history
of the organization, since it is the first version that will be
distributed only in electronic form. At the time that IACR was
founded in 1983, the predominant form of communication was paper-based
postal mail. Cryptology was already an important scientific field of
endeavour, but we had not yet entered the information age. In the
years since then, the world has experienced many remarkable changes
resulting from ubiquitous worldwide data communications. It's turned
out to be a golden age for cryptology, as the world realizes the
importance of information in their daily lives. The fact that our
newsletter should now be electronic is only a reflection of the fact
that everything is going electronic.
It was announced at Crypto '97 that Christian Cachin was appointed as
Editor of the IACR Newsletter. He faces a challenge in defining what
the newsletter should look like in this new format, but I am confident
that he is up to the task. In order for this newsletter to be useful
for members, we should all help Christian by contributing useful and
interesting content. The newsletter has traditionally had a very
conservative policy on what to accept, but this was due in part to our
mailing costs for an international newsletter. By going electronic, I
hope that we can distribute information in a more timely and effective
fashion.
Electronic Proceedings CD-ROM
Many of you have asked what happened to the CD-ROM of IACR proceedings
that was promised at Eurocrypt '98. There were numerous problems in
the production of this volume, but I am happy to report that the work
has now been completed, and the material will shortly be sent to
Springer-Verlag for final production. The CD-ROM will contain PDF
files for all papers published in IACR proceedings from 1981-1997. In
addition, there is a full author index, a keyword index, HTML
navigational files, and a rudimentary keyword search capability. It
will be published in the Lecture Notes in Computer Science series from
Springer-Verlag, and should be available before the end of the year.
IACR SPONSORSHIP OF ASIACRYPT
The other major change in IACR is the agreement between the Asiacrypt
Steering Committee and the IACR Board of Directors for IACR to assume
sponsorship for the Asiacrypt conference beginning in the year 2000.
IACR has always had strong participation by the Asian and Australian
cryptologic research communities, and I hope that the IACR sponsorship
of Asiacrypt will strengthen worldwide scientific interaction in the
field.
IACR SECRETARIAT SERVICES
IACR has recently contracted with the University of California at
Santa Barbara (UCSB) to provide membership services, including such
things as change of address and conference registration. Andy Clark
has worked very hard to organize our membership database and services
in recent years, and he deserves a great deal of credit for the
current smooth functioning of the organization. He and Jimmy Upton
worked hard to transfer the responsibility to UCSB, and I am confident
that this will work out well for the membership.
Kevin McCurley
IACR President
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