IACR Board of Directors Meeting 19 AUG 2007 In Attendance: Thomas Berson John Black Andrew Clark Ronald Cramer Yvo Desmedt Stuart Haber Helena Handschuh Shai Halevi James Hughes Markus Jakobsson Antoine Joux Kwangjo Kim Aysegul Kursunlu Susan Langford Arjen Lenstra Javier Lopez Ueli Maurer Kevin McCurley Eiji Okamoto Hillary Orman Bart Preneel Jean-Jacques Quisquater Serge Vaudenay ============================= The meeting commenced at 10am in Santa Barbara. President Clark began by welcoming board members and calling for any additional agenda items. Proxies: Berson has Cachin Kwangjo has Phan and Matsumoto Notes from BoD in EC 2007 will be approved by email vote. General chair of CRYPTO 2007, Jakobsson, gave his report. Indications are that attendance is steady or slightly declining from prior years. Sponsorship is slightly increased. The board approved the treasurer's report, circulated beforehand. Newsletter editor Hughes was asked about polling general chairs for their reports for inclusion in the newsletter. This is underway. He mentioned the ePrint archive now has a discussion feature. He wants to further advertise the availability of the Springer proceedings available to members. Journal of Cryptology Editor Maurer answered questions related to his report. In particular, the issue of electronic reviewing was discussed, but no resolution was reached. Preneel agreed to compare available web-based systems. Membership Secretary Halevi discussed issues related to upgrading the website. In particular, the current OS needs to be updated, and several paths were suggested. The board voted to allocate $10,000 to budget for the upgrade. The proposal was passed nearly unanimously (there was one abstention). Steering Committee reports =========================== The board received the Asiacrypt steering committee report from Kim. The board received the CHES report from Quisquater; a formal vote will be deferred until after further details are received. One board member noted that CHES tends to be a very expensive workshop compared to our other venues, and that it should be made less expensive to help especially our students attendees. Some discussion ensued, but no resolution was reached. The TCC and FSE reports was received with no issues. The board received a report from Kim on AC 2007. Cramer discussed PKC briefly; some discussion ensued about the timing of future PKCs since the workshop has tended to move across the calendar in past years. ================== No report has been received from the Fellows Committee. The two fellows who will receive their plaques will not be in attendance this year (Goldwasser and Micali); both will receive their plaques by post. Berson gave the election committee report. Nominations forms are on the web; three director positions and all officer positions are open for election. Nominations are due by 04 SEP, and all IACR members are encouraged to submit a nomination. Clark called for a vote to approve Maurer's term as JoC editor until December 2010. The vote was approved unanimously. Maurer indicated that he will almost certainly step down at the end of this next term. ================= Reports on conferences/workshops The board received a report from Kwangjo on Asiacrypt 2007. The board received a report from Kursunlu on Eurocrypt 2008 on behalf of general chair A. Murat Apohan, who could not be present. ================= The board next received a proposal for Asiacrypt 2009 from Eiji Okamoto, already approved by the Asiacrypt Steering Committee. The proposed site is Tokyo, Japan. A vote was called and the proposal was unanimously approved. ================= The board then discussed PC chair candidates for AC 2009. A candidate was chosen but pending contact and acceptance, the name is not yet public. --- The board received a report from Archivist Orman; she noted that she is still experiencing difficulty acquiring copyright forms from some past PC chairs. The board then received two proposals for EUROCRYPT 2009. The first was for Cologne, Germany, the second for Salerno, Italy. In a close vote, Cologne was chosen as the EUROCRYPT 2009 venue. The board then considered candidates for PC chairs of EC 2009 and CRYPTO 2009. Candidates were selected for both. The chairs will be made public after they have been contacted and they have accepted. A candidate was also chosen for the IACR distinguished lecturer, to be presented at AC 2009. The board embarked upon a discussion regarding electronic voting for IACR elections. Many expressed concern that such an undertaking would be risky. A sub-committee was formed to further investigate this topic. The board discussed whether we should regularly video tape all talks given at our venues and make them public. It was pointed out that many people might object to being taped, and that they should be allowed to opt out. It was further pointed out that some might be caught inadvertantly as well, however. The board agreed that we would move forward in attempting to obtain permission from presenters and putting the talks online. Hughes has volunteered to investigate methods, costs, and benefits and present a report to the board in a future meeting. A discussion transpired regarding expanding the Cryptostats website to include more venues than just Crypto and EUROCRYPT. Black mentioned that he was currently working with Preneel to make this happen, which would probably include transferring responsibility for maintenance of this site to other people. McCurley later volunteered to assist in the task. The board discussed broadening the scope of the Journal of Cryptology to include more applied topics. Maurer pointed out that the journal's scope already includes applied topics, but acknowledged that the majority of the content typically does not include a large volume of applied work. Many pointed out that this may be a problem of perception. Maurer assured the board that applied work with substantial intellectual content would be given strong consideration for inclusion. Another discussion ensued relating to starting a new journal specific to applied cryptography. It appears that Springer may be already intending to act in this direction. After a substantial discussion regarding the prudence of a new IACR journal devoted to applied work, the board resolved instead to consider soliciting strong submissions to the Journal of Cryptology from our more applied venues such as CHES. Our next discussion revolved around the possibility of moving CRYPTO away from Santa Barbara. Board members pointed out the commitment of moving: it is unlikely we would be able to return. We would also lose services that UCSB currently provides outside of running CRYPTO, and that replacing these services commercially would almost certainly be more expensive. It was further pointed out that in all past membership votes, the members overwhelmingly voted to remain at UCSB. Another board member remarked that holding this vote at EUROCRYPT might give different results. The board resolved to investigate proposals for CRYPTO 2010 in other venues, along with a comprehensive study of the impacts of such a move at that time. Clark cautioned the board members that we must not send a message to UCSB that we are in any way taking steps to move CRYPTO. This will be further discussed at EUROCRYPT 2008. The final discussion revolved around choosing a general chair for CRYPTO 2009. John Black was asked and happily accepted. As a final matter, President Clark reiterated that he will not be running for reelection for president, nor does he plan to serve on the board in any other capacity. He expressed his gratitude for the privilege of working with board members and our membership over the past many years.