************************ EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ************************ The IACR Board of Directors met on August 17, 2003 during Crypto 2003 in Santa Barbara. Reports were received on the status of Crypto 2003, Asiacrypt 2003, Eurocrypt 2004, Crypto 2004, and Asiacrypt 2004. Additional reports were received on IACR finances, IT issues, the status of the relationship with Springer-Verlag, IACR elections, the Journal of Cryptology, the IACR Archives, and the IACR Newsletter, web site, and ePrint Archive. The Board voted to appoint Victor Shoup as Program Chair of Crypto 2005. The Board voted to appoint Stuart Haber as General Chair of Crypto 2005. The Board voted to invite Whitfield Diffie to deliver the 2004 IACR Distinguished Lecture. The Board voted to hold Asiacrypt 2005 in Chennai (Madras), India and appoint Pandu Rangan as General Chair. The Board voted to appoint Bimal Roy as Program Chair for Asiacrypt 2005. The Board voted to give preliminary approval to hold Eurocrypt 2006 in St. Petersburg, Russia and appoint Anatoly Lebedev as General Chair. The Board voted to give IACR sponsorship to the Cryptographic Hardware and Embedded Systems (CHES) workshop. ************************ DETAILED MINUTES ************************ Board of Directors Meeting Crypto 2003 Santa Barbara 17 August 2003 Board President Clark called the meeting to order at 11:01. Present were Benaloh, Berson, Cachin, Clark, Dawson, Desmedt, Hughes, Kim, Langford, Matsumoto, Maurer, McCurley, Preneel, and Rose as well as Micky Swick who represented the IACR Secretariat and Chin-Laung Lei who represented Asiacrypt 2003 General Chair Chang. Proxies were held for Camenisch by Cachin and for Knudsen by Berson. ________________________________________________________________________ The agenda for the meeting was reviewed. It consisted of the following. - Welcome participants - identification of proxies (Clark) (5 minutes) - Review and approve agenda (All) (5 minutes) - Approve Minutes from last meeting (Benaloh/Clark) (10 minutes) - Crypto 2003 status (Rose) (5 minutes) - Financial report (Langford) (5 minutes) - Membership Secretary report (Beaver) (5 minutes) - Newsletter/ePrint Archive report (Cachin) (5 minutes) - IACR Archivist report (Orman) (5 minutes) - Journal of Cryptology report and page budget discussion (Maurer) (10 minutes) - 2003 Election Committee Update (Hughes, Preneel, Wright) (5 minutes) - Eurocrypt 2003 status (Gawinecki) (5 minutes) - Asiacrypt 2003 status (Chang) (5 minutes) - Crypto 2004 status (Hughes) (5 minutes) - Asiacrypt 2004 status (Kim) (5 minutes) - Program and General Chair List Maintenance (Benaloh) (10 minutes) - Crypto 2005 General Chair Appointment (Clark) (5 minutes) - Crypto 2005 Program Chair Appointment (Clark) (20 minutes) - Asiacrypt 2005 Discussion (C. Pandu Rangan) (15 minutes) - Asiacrypt 2005 Program Chair Appointment (Clark) (20 minutes) - IT strategy and conference registration (McCurley) (20 minutes) - Proposal from CHES Steering Committee for IACR Sponsorship (Preneel) (20 minutes) - Proposal to hold Eurocrypt 2006 in St. Petersburg (Anatoly Lebedev) (20 minutes) - Eurocrypt 2006 proposal discussion (Clark) (15 minutes) - Springer-Verlag status (Clark) (5 minutes) - Discussion on Parallel Sessions (Desmedt) (20 minutes) - Other Business (Clark) (no more than 60 minutes) - Draft agenda for Membership Meeting (All) (10 minutes) - Review of action items ________________________________________________________________________ Clark began by welcoming the Board and indicating his intent to concentrate efforts during the meeting on "heavy-duty" items. ________________________________________________________________________ Crypto 2003 General Chair Rose then reported on the status of the conference (appended report circulated by email). After reporting on the status of his broken leg, he said that the conference details were proceeding smoothly. He indicated that the registration count was 410 as of Aug. 15 (with an additional 13-15 accompanying persons) and that 442 proceedings and t-shirts had been ordered. Rose added that the break-even point for this conference had been reduced to 300 delegates and that a surplus of $20-25 thousand was expected. Rose noted that the Program Committee meeting had been held in New York, that 74 student discounts had been given, and that 8-9 refund requests had been received due to inability to obtain visas. Rose added that the BoF (Birds of a Feather) sessions were a new innovation. Wright arrived at 11:10. Rose said that minor adjustments had been made to catering and alcohol and that the t-shirt included a puzzle. ________________________________________________________________________ Treasurer Langford then addressed issues relating to a financial report which had been circulated in advance of the meeting (appended report circulated by email). She said that there were as yet no final numbers from Eurocrypt 2003. McCurley asked if there had been any changes in costs for the IACR Secretariat and Langford responded that there had not been. Clark said that he intended to reduce the burden on the Secretariat through IT strategy, and Swick said that she would like a more formal relationship. Rose asked if the on-line registration form had helped, and Swick responded that it had with the exception of credit cards. Clark then took the action item of reviewing the IT strategy with Swick. McCurley asked whether Springer-Verlag had been prompt in its billing, and Langford responded that there had been no changes. ________________________________________________________________________ The Membership Secretary report was cancelled due to Beaver's absence. Clark took the action item of contacting Beaver. ________________________________________________________________________ Newsletter Editor Cachin then addressed issues relating to a status report which had been circulated in advance of the meeting (appended report circulated by email). Clark noted the potential need to begin a review process for the ePrint Archive, and Cachin responded that a growing number of poor submissions was resulting in a larger number of rejections. Clark asked that Cachin let the Board know if difficulties arose, and Cachin replied that he would be meeting soon with Mihir Bellare to discuss editorial policy. Desmedt suggested that there should be no refereeing of the Archive. McCurley asked if Cachin had had any problems with web site hosting, and Cachin responded that he had not. ________________________________________________________________________ The Archivist report was delayed to accommodate the late arrival of Archivist Orman. ________________________________________________________________________ Journal of Cryptology Editor-in-Chief Maurer then addressed issues relating to a status report which had been circulated in advance of the meeting. Clark began by noting the new contract with Springer-Verlag that had been circulated by McCurley. Maurer then noted that there had been fluctuations in the length of the Journal queue. He asked if it made sense to publish 100-page papers and said that he had decided to include paper length among the evaluation criteria. He also asked if it would be possible to allocate additional pages as he expressed his desire for greater flexibility in this regard. Clark noted that the contract with Springer-Verlag had been extended for 5 years, and Langford noted that in the past premiums had been paid for special issues. Berson noted that the Journal costs members roughly $20 per issue and asked whether members would want to pay $20 for a single paper. Clark took the action of discussing a reduction in price with Springer-Verlag, and Maurer asked if Springer-Verlag could afford this. Desmedt asserted that Springer-Verlag rates were very reasonable when compared to those of other publishers. Langford noted that the Journal cost may not grow linearly with the number of pages. McCurley asked who was officially responsible for the Springer-Verlag contract, and Clark accepted responsibility. Wright supported paying more to publish high-quality papers and asked for a sense of the Board, and Maurer said that a higher average page count would be desirable since it would be difficult to reject high-quality papers because of length. Preneel offered his trust in Maurer's judgment and saw no reason to force papers to be artificially split. Berson suggested that an occasional long issue for an important paper would be great as it would show IACR support for good research, and there was general agreement with this sense. ________________________________________________________________________ An Election Committee report was then given by Committee Member Wright. Hughes served as Chair of the Committee and Preneel served as Returning Officer. Wright said that nomination forms had been prepared and that Hughes had both hard copy and .PDF format available. She noted that the terms of Directors Berson, Desmedt, and Knudsen were expiring. Clark noted that mailing of ballots had been a problem the previous year and asked that Micky Swick take an action item to check on this. ________________________________________________________________________ The report on Eurocrypt 2003 was postponed due to the absence of General Chair Gawinecki. Clark noted that it had been an excellent conference. ________________________________________________________________________ Chin-Laung Lei then presented a status report on Asiacrypt 2003 as a proxy for General Chair Chang. He said that there had been 188 submissions from 26 countries and that 36 papers had been accepted. Lei said that registration of 122 had been set as a break-even point, but various sponsorships had reduced the break-even point to approximately 100 attendees. He estimated that total attendance of 150 full registrations plus 50 student registrations would produce a surplus of roughly $10,000. Lei said that a planned city tour would include a museum in Taipei. He also said that hotels priced at approximately $130-140 were about a ten minute walk from the conference venue and that student alternatives were available for about $40. He added that regular registration had been set at $400 and student registration had been set at $200. Finally, he noted that the Taiwan government would provide assistance to locals attending a domestic conference. Desmedt asked if the conference was being promoted, and McCurley suggested that the Asiacrypt Steering Committee promote the conference through local groups. McCurley then asked if payments in U.S. dollars were a problem, and Kim replied that they were not a problem. ________________________________________________________________________ The Board recessed for a break at 12:03. The Board reconvened at 12:10. ________________________________________________________________________ Eurocrypt 2004 Program Chair Cachin then reported on the status of the conference. He said that the budget had been revised due to its heavy reliance on the U.S. dollar exchange rate. He added that the break-even point had been reduced and that sponsorship for food had been obtained. Cachin said that two excursion options had been planned (for an additional fee): one to the Swiss Heritage Museum and another to the Mystery Park. Clark thanked Cachin for his flexibility and asked if there had been any legal issues. Cachin said that there were no issues and noted that the Board Meeting would take place either in the Villa Europe or the Hotel Interlaken. McCurley said that he would prefer that there be a single excursion so as not to divide the group. Dawson asked about hotel costs, and Cachin replied that three star hotels were approximately $80-100 and four star hotels were approximately $130. Desmedt asked if there were less expensive hotels for students, and Cachin replied that there were. ________________________________________________________________________ McCurley asked to revise the agenda to advance the Information Technology discussion to 13:00 to make it easier for Micky Swick. ________________________________________________________________________ General Chair Hughes then said that he had nothing to report on Crypto 2004. When asked about the dates, Swick said that UCSB could not schedule space definitively at that time but that August 15-19 was tentatively set. Preneel suggested that an earlier commitment to dates be made -- even if facilities had not been confirmed. ________________________________________________________________________ Asiacrypt 2004 General Chair Kim then reported on the status of the conference. Kim said that the conference had been scheduled for December 5-9, 2004 on Jeju Island, Korea. He added that a contract had been signed with a hotel and that a hosting agency would be selected. He also said that he would seek sponsorship for the conference and that he would have a Call for Papers and web page ready for Asiacrypt 2003. He added that it would be more convenient to work in Korean currency. ________________________________________________________________________ The Board recessed for lunch at 12:30. The Board reconvened at 13:00 at which point Biham arrived. ________________________________________________________________________ The Board then spent time on maintenance of its list of prospective general and program chairs. ________________________________________________________________________ McCurley then reported on Information Technology issues. He noted numerous items that fall under the purview of IT including the Membership Database, Web site and Newsletter hosting, the ePrint Server, conference management (including registration, announcements, program committee support), archives, and election management. McCurley stated that the business and service case for a dedicated IACR machine. He said that the services received from the IACR Secretariat are good but are expensive due to their labor intensiveness. He also said that taking over IT responsibilities would enable electronic registration, allow use of local currencies, and reduce the load on the Secretariat with increasing numbers of IACR-sponsored meetings. McCurley described the goals as improving database maintenance, improving communication and service, enabling electronic registration and credit cared payments, and reducing costs. McCurley indicated that the options for conference registration were to maintain the status quo, to set up a new system with off-the-shelf software, to hire a developer, or to do the development ourselves. He added that the UCSB would be moving towards electronic registration but that it was a low priority for them which had led to many problems. Orman arrived at this point. McCurley proposed that a dedicated IACR machine be procured and installed by 9/2003, that database migration be completed by 10/2003, and that electronic payment for Eurocrypt be enabled by 1/2004. McCurley noted several outstanding issues which included the database migration, banking, system maintenance, development work, and whether to include a new web server or maintain the current machine at Southwest Cyber Port. Clark agreed to solicit one or more partners to work with McCurley, and Rose offered to help. Cachin suggested another person who might be willing to assist. Clark also agreed to investigate the availability of multi-currency standardization accounts outside of the U.S. Micky Swick said that the UCSB would not be able to work with non-U.S. banks and noted that the needs of the IACR had outgrown and diverged from the support available from UCSB. Clark said that he would like to begin by relieving the UCSB of specific functions (e.g. banking) and reducing the work load through IT improvements. Swick said that she thought this would help. Clark then thanked McCurley for his work and suggested planning for electronic payments for the next Eurocrypt. Desmedt expressed the view that lower costs should be paramount and that electronic voting is dangerous. Cachin noted that currency exchange costs are high, and Langford asserted that removing currency exchange is very desirable. Clark assigned the action of completing the IT plan within a month. McCurley suggested starting with database migration. Maurer expressed the view that finding people to take ownership is crucial. Rose replied that he believed that the IACR was outgrowing volunteer labor as it began to sponsor more workshops and suggested that it might be time to hire a full-time manager. ________________________________________________________________________ ************************************************************************ The Board voted to ask Victor Shoup to serve as General Chair for Crypto 2004. ************************************************************************ [Shoup subsequently agreed to serve in this role.] ************************************************************************ The Board voted to ask Stuart Haber to serve as Program Chair for Crypto 2004. ************************************************************************ [Haber subsequently agreed to serve in this role.] ________________________________________________________________________ Pandu Rangan then presented a proposal (as recommended by the Asiacrypt Steering Committee) to hold Asiacrypt 2005 in Chennai (Madras), India. The proposed venue would be the Hotel Taj Coromandai and dates would be December 4-8, 2005. The estimated hotel price would be about $160 per night but might be reduced through negotiation by 25-30%. Student hotels would be available at $30-60 per night, and dorms would be available at $5 per night. ________________________________________________________________________ The Board then recessed for a break at 14:13. The Board reconvened at 14:20. ________________________________________________________________________ ************************************************************************ The Board voted to approve the proposal to hold Asiacrypt 2005 in Chennai, India with Pandu Rangan as General Chair. ************************************************************************ ************************************************************************ The Board voted to ask Bimal Roy to serve as Program Chair for Asiacrypt 2005. ************************************************************************ ________________________________________________________________________ Anatoly Lebedev then presented a proposal to hold Eurocrypt 2006 in St. Petersburg either the last week of April or in mid June. Quisquater arrived at this point. ************************************************************************ The Board voted to approve the proposal to hold Eurocrypt 2006 in St. Petersburg, Russia with Anatoly Lebedev as General Chair subject to budget and scheduling agreement with the Board. ************************************************************************ ________________________________________________________________________ IACR Archivist Orman circulated a report by email (appended). She said that she was in the process of building a collection of past IACR proceedings. McCurley suggested that providing proceedings to the Archivist should be added to the Program Chair Guidelines and the process be raised at the Membership Meeting. Cachin took responsibility for contacting Knudsen to have this added to the Guidelines. ________________________________________________________________________ Clark then reported on the status of relations with Springer-Verlag. Clark said that the Springer-Verlag Link service had been impaired by the recent Springer-Verlag change of ownership. Cachin expressed concerns about this change resulting in pricing changes. Desmedt expressed a desire to have IACR proceedings included in the Link service. ________________________________________________________________________ Rose departed and gave his proxy to Langford. ________________________________________________________________________ The Board then recessed for a break at 15:16. The Board reconvened at 15:22. ________________________________________________________________________ Clark then began to compile a list of items for the Membership Meeting. The list included the expected change in operation of the IACR database, information about the Archivist, and the "usual" announcements. ________________________________________________________________________ Desmedt then raised the issue of having parallel sessions in IACR conferences. Clark expressed the view that it was time to try something different. He said that it might be best tried at Eurocrypt rather than Crypto. Dawson expressed his support for parallel sessions. Clark asked if Program Chairs wanted to accept more papers, and Biham responded that he did not. Langford expressed the view that Program Chairs should have the final say in this matter, but Clark responded that most Program Chairs assume that this is not an option. Cachin questioned whether more accepted papers would increase attendance. Desmedt said that he wanted flexibility to be given to Program Chairs. Berson began by expressing Knudsen's proxy in opposition to parallel sessions. He then said that it was fine to be experimental but voiced concerns about the economic impact since proceedings costs are proportional to the number of pages. Benaloh described multiple concerns including quality of papers, logistic difficulties, and clear opposition from the membership. He also expressed the concern that the suggestion of partial parallelization would disadvantage those sub-areas which were selected to be presented simultaneously with other sub-areas. Wright expressed a liking for experimentation but opposition to parallel sessions. She said that other conferences should not be viewed as competition. McCurley said that he would prefer to have multiple conferences at the same site and noted that concurrent conferences can work. Maurer agreed that co-locating conferences makes sense and suggested that the issue might be providing service to the community versus service to authors. Preneel suggested that expansion causes competition which is not necessarily good for the community. Hughes noted that those delegates who currently attend all sessions would be unhappy with parallel sessions and voiced the opinion that quality is an asset that should not be surrendered. Orman expressed support for experimentation with parallel sessions as did Dawson. Preneel suggested the alternative of additional workshops after Crypto. Cachin expressed the view that if something were to be changed, it should not be increasing the number of papers. He suggested the alternative of an expanded and/or parallel rump session. Clark then said that valid points had been made on both sides and expressed the view that impetus for change should come from the Program Chairs. He then asked what should be done next. Desmedt asked that a message should be given to Program and General Chairs offering them the option of parallel sessions. Wright asked what was in the Program and General Chair Guidelines. Cachin indicated that some changes could be contemplated for Eurocrypt 2004. McCurley suggested the possibility of giving Program Chairs tacit approval to experiment with parallel sessions. Desmedt noted that some conferences die due to competition. ________________________________________________________________________ Quisquater then presented a proposal for IACR to sponsor the Cryptographic Hardware and Embedded Systems (CHES) workshop. (A proposal was distributed in advance.) Clark began by asking why CHES sought IACR sponsorship. Quisquater responded by highlighting management of copyrights and avoiding fragmentation within the community. Wright noted that registration fees for CHES had increased substantially. Quisquater replied that venues had become more expensive and sponsorships had been reduced. McCurley asked about the scope of CHES. Quisquater answered that the scope varies. He said that originally there had been no papers on hardware cryptanalysis but that more recent papers included cryptographic hardware, efficient software implementations, and side channel issues. Dawson asked how the workshops surplus and risk were to be managed. Quisquater responded that financial responsibility was to be negotiated for 2005 and beyond. Clark asked when sponsorship was proposed to begin. Quisquater replied that sponsorship would begin in 2004 with financial responsibility taking effect in 2005. Berson expressed a concern that IACR resources were being stretched and noted that copyright could be managed without full sponsorship. Clark concurred with Berson and then noted Knudsen's proxy saying that the CHES attendance was impressive but that he was concerned about IACR taking on financial management. Cachin suggested the possibility of delaying further growth of IACR. Maurer expressed the view that IACR should try to attract established conferences and should look to increase its support capabilities. Benaloh suggested that CHES seemed strong but that a moratorium on further growth might be prudent. Desmedt asserted that CHES is strong. Orman suggested that a financial impact statement would be helpful. Dawson expressed a desire for better Board control. Langford noted that resources are stretched substantially at present. Clark said that he didn't feel that the proposed level of support was possible with the extent infrastructure. Preneel suggested that the IACR is at a point where re-organization of the Board may be required. Wright suggested that this opportunity should not be lost. McCurley said that managing copyright should provide an easy short-term solution. ************************************************************************ The Board then voted to make CHES an IACR-sponsored workshop with financial responsibility commencing in 2005 and IACR membership for delegates commencing in 2004. The motion was made by Benaloh and seconded by Maurer and carried 12-3. ************************************************************************ ________________________________________________________________________ ************************************************************************ The Board then voted to ask Whitfield Diffie to deliver the 2004 IACR Distinguished Lecture at Asiacrypt. ************************************************************************ ________________________________________________________________________ An agenda for the Membership Meeting was then assembled. Topics included the IACR membership list going to an electronic format, upcoming IACR elections, sponsorship of CHES together with an announcement that no additional workshops would be considered for IACR sponsorship in the immediate future, solicitation of nominations for IACR Fellows, and information on the IACR Archive. ________________________________________________________________________ Clark then asked for other business. Cachin suggested that awards be given at conference banquets rather than during Membership Meetings. McCurley suggested that IACR workshops be encouraged to co-locate sequentially with Crypto or Eurocrypt. Wright solicited nominations for the upcoming IACR elections. Matsumoto suggested establishing a better method to select Eurocrypt venues. Dawson suggested that the IACR co-ordinate between Program Chairs to facilitate identification of multiple submissions. Clark noted receiving a cold call from a conference coordinator offering Glasgow as a Eurocrypt venue. ________________________________________________________________________ The meeting adjourned at 17:13. ________________________________________________________________________ Respectfully submitted Josh Benaloh IACR Secretary ________________________________________________________________________ Attachments ________________________________________________________________________ Preliminary Report on Crypto 2003 Greg Rose Crypto 2003 General Chair 9-Aug-2003 It's going to be a great conference! At the time of writing, one week out, we're about to hit 400 attendees. Just before Eurocrypt, I rebudgeted to take into account my panic over SARS and homicidal dictators (not naming names here) to aim for a break-even of 325 and expected attendance of about 350, so 400 is actually a very comfortable result, down (only) about 10% from the previous year. (We still look good compared to some other organizations, particularly USENIX. I had originally budgeted for a slight increase over 2002 attendance.) I expect to return a surplus of $20-25k. Organizationally, Sally/Eriko/Joe have been very easy to deal with. For a short while we fell a bit behind with processing registrations, mostly because Joe got sick, and had lots of queries about that, but no long-term disasters. Having the "poor man's electronic registration form" on the web did apparently help with processing registrations more quickly and accurately. We only did a single mailout of a single sheet registration form, pointing to the web site for more information. Christian has been great with updating the web site and reminding me when to swear at Microsoft for stuffing up the formatting. The program committee meeting was held in New York, and the biggest single expense was a dinner. Dan Boneh has been good and easy to work with generally. I gave out 7 full student stipends (all foreigners but one is coming from MIT), 5 partial stipends (registration and accommodation only), and an "unemployed stipend" (special deal on registration and free accomodation). I made a small effort to get sponsorships for some of these, but got such a lack of interest that I gave up in favour of putting my effort into managing expenses. We issued about 10 "invitation letters" to people needing visas, and had to process one refund caused by the US government refusing to issue a visa in time (note; not refusing to issue it, just refusing to issue promptly). Next year the web site should say something about needing to apply early. I wouldn't be surprised if a few more people get caught. (I'm sensitised to visa issues at the moment.) I've made a couple of smallish innovations: the principal one is having some Birds of a Feather sessions on Tuesday afternoon. The others mostly have to do with alcohol. The t-shirt design is intentionally obscure, but yes, there is a point to it, and no, I'm not going to tell anyone what it is. regards, Greg. ________________________________________________________________________ Treasurer's Report Susan Langford 14-Aug-2003 As of December 31, 2002, the IACR had $206,000 held in certificates of deposit, approximately $279,000 held in the main IACR and Crypto checking accounts, and approximately $140,000 at UCSB. Of these amounts about $90,000 were due from 2001 expenses and $230,000 is already set aside for specific expenditures in 2003 (including the journal and projected losses from Eurocrypt 2003), leaving about $305,000 as the true surplus. 2002 Conferences Total Income Membership Secretariat Surplus Eurocrypt $224,000 $32,000 $10,000 $23,000 Crypto $217,000 $25,000 $10,000 $17,000 Asiacrypt $70,000 $6,000 $0 -$15,000 The Crypto income does not include on campus housing. In 2003, low attendance and currency fluctuations caused a significant loss at Eurocrypt 2003. However, attendance at Crypto 2003 looks good, and we expect a small surplus. We will continue to budget conferences conservatively and to control costs. Cash in the IACR accounts as of July 31, 2003 was approximately $472,000. Note that this number does not include money held by UCSB. Susan Langford IACR Treasurer ________________________________________________________________________ Report of the Archivist Hilarie Orman 14-Aug-2003 The only new item added recently is the Crypto 2003 proceedings. I would like to add the Eurocrypt 2003 and 2001 papers, but I have been unable to get responses from the program chairs. The same is true for FSE 2003 and 2002. I suggest that instructions to program chairs include providing the Archivist with a tarball of the papers as submitted to Springer. Most chairs have done this by putting the compressed tar file on a web server for one day and letting the archivist know the URL. FTP is preferable, if available. I can also archive paper, such as the author's copyright release forms, if they are given to me. The paper gets photographed and included in the electronic archive. Items in the archive (on CDs and on disk) Crypto 96 10 papers, a mix of tex and ps files Conference had 30 papers (they are on the 20 year CD) Crypto 97 9 papers, a mix of tex and ps Conference had 37 papers (they are on the 20 year CD) Crypto 98 17 papers, a mix of tex and ps Proceedings list 33 papers Crypto 99 39 papers, ps for all, tex for 32 Proceedings list 39 papers Crypto 00 Complete papers (tex and ps) Crypto 01 Complete papers Crypto 02 Complete papers Digital photos of all signed copyright forms from authors (high res jpg's) (the original paper forms are also in archivist's possession) Crypto 03 Complete papers Eurocrypt 00 Complete papers Eurocrypt 01 Nothing Eurocrypt 02 Complete papers Asiacrypt 02 Complete papers Eurocrypt 03 Digital photocopy of Power of Attorney form PKC 98 Complete papers PKC 99 Complete papers PKC 00 Complete ps for papers, some tex PKC 01 All papers, low-quality pdf only FSE 02 Nothing FSE 03 Nothing Hilarie Orman IACR Archivist ________________________________________________________________________ Report of the Newsletter Editor Christian Cachin 14-Aug-03 My position as IACR Newsletter Editor involves two things: the Newsletter and the website. In addition, I am reporting on the cryptology eprint archive. The Newsletter has been running smoothly, and I have managed to send three issues per year since I took up as editor (in February, June, and October). See the back issues at http://www.iacr.org/newsletter/ However, personal and work commitments have prevented me in 2003 from completing the June issue so far -- a delay for which I'd like to apologize to our membership. I hope to complete the "Summer" issue still in August 2003. Because of the involved work, I have also contemplated to produce only two Newsletter issues per year in the future (as was the schedule of the printed Newsletter). Most of the information appears in a timely fashion on the website, anyway. On the web site, only evolutionary changes have happened, but Kevin and I have made progress on implementing the new IT strategy with IACR's own server. Regarding the eprint archive, which has posted 166 papers to this date in 2003, some things have changed. Most importantly, we are receiving more and more low- and very-low-quality submissions, which appear to be typically from beginner students or amateurs, typically from India or China, who submit it with a comment like "I have some interesting ideas that I wrote up ... please give me some feedback". Obviously, we cannot provide such feedback. Posting such submissions is not the purpose of the archive. Mihir and I are therefore currently undertaking a revision of the acceptance policy; we are also considering to establish an informal editorial board of experts who can briefly look at a paper and assess if it qualifies for inclusion in the archive. ________________________________________________________________________ Journal of Cryptology: Editor's report, August 13, 2003 ------------------------------------------------------- The journal is on track. The special issue on the bounded-storage model which Oded had proposed and managed is soon ready for publication. The status of the journal is more or less the same as stated in my last report of April 2003, with one exception. The queue of papers ready (or soon ready) for publication is growing, and in particular we might have a few very long papers, filling possibly more than an issue. My editorial policy for such exceptionally long papers is to have them checked first for significance (relative to the length) and then refereed regularly. There is a "risk" that the queue grows quite quickly, with delays of up to 18 months or more between the time the final manuscript is ready and the publication date. But this is really difficult to predict. We therefore need to explore possibilities for flexibility in the number of pages. I am not informed about the details of the contract, but the specified parameters are 4 issues per year with a total of 288 pages. I assume the contract als specifies a price for extra pages, but I am not sure. The basic questions are: - Does the contract allow for extra pages? If so, at which price? - If not, should we change the contract accordingly? - Which competence does the board grant to the EIC to publish more pages? If I am granted such flexibility, I would expect to allocate up to about 320 to 340 pages per year if necessary, increasing the number of pages per issue from 72 to between 80 and 85, but with possibly single issues having up to 100 pages. At the moment it does not seem to make sense to increase the number of issues per year, and it is also too early to renegotiate the contract with a higher fixed number of pages. Ueli Maurer ________________________________________________________________________