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