============================= IACR Board of Directors Meeting Crypto 2010 ============================= Date: Sunday, 15 August 2010 Time: 10:00 am - 5:00 pm Venue: Flying A Room, UCEN, UCSB Officers (Name, date that term ends.) ======================== Bart Preneel Dec 2010 President Ed Dawson Dec 2010 Vice President Thomas Shrimpton Dec 2010 Secretary Helena Handschuh Dec 2010 Treasurer Elected Directors =========== x Christian Cachin Dec 2010 Director Tsutomu Matsumoto Dec 2010 Director x David Pointcheval Dec 2010 Director Josh Benaloh Dec 2011 Director Stuart Haber Dec 2011 Director x Antoine Joux Dec 2011 Director Tom Berson Dec 2012 Director x David Naccache Dec 2012 Director Serge Vaudenay Dec 2012 Director Appointed Directors ============= x Christopher Wolf Dec 2012 Newsletter Editor x Shai Halevi Dec 2011 Membership Secretary Matt Franklin Dec 2011 JoC Editor Conference General Chairs ========================= x Olivier Billet Dec 2010 GC EC2010 Zulfikar Ramzan Dec 2010 GC CR2010 x San Ling Dec 2010 GC AC2010 Helger Lipmaa Dec 2011 GC EC2011 Tom Shrimpton Dec 2011 GC CR2011 Hyoung-Joong Kim Dec 2011 GC AC2011 Steering Committee Representatives ================================== Tsutomu Matsumoto (Asiacrypt) David Pointcheval (PKC) Ivan Damgaard (TCC) Bart Preneel (FSE) Jean-Jacques Quisquater (CHES) Others ====== Hilarie Orman Archivist x Kevin McCurley Database Administrator [An 'x' before the name denotes a member that did not attend.] Opening Matters =========== President Preneel opened the meeting by welcoming the participants and identifying the voting proxies: Handschuh for Joux/Naccache/Billet, Vaudenay for Pointcheval, Matsumoto for Ling; Haber for Halevi, Shrimpton for Cachin. The previously circulated meeting-agenda was approved without modification. The minutes of the Eurocrypt'10 BoD meeting were approved without modification. Preneel reviewed the status of action items identified from the Eurocrypt'10 meeting. Crypto 2010 status General Chair Ramzan presented a brief summary: 433 paid attendees, with some additional onsite registration expected; this is a fairly sharp increase over last year, likely due to the co-location of CHES, FDTC and SHA-3 with Crypto this year. Qualcomm, Microsoft Research, DE Shaw, Cryptography Research and Google all provided sponsorship. Much of the sponsorship money was used support students (free registration and, in some cases, money for travel). The Marconi Grant remains a source of student support. Ramzan anticipated a small surplus for the conference. There was some discussion about the early-registration deadline date, as it has moved over the years. The GC suggested that we try to be consistent with the time between the early deadline and the actual date of the conference to assist in planning and budgeting. A member suggested even to add an additional charge for people registering onsite (or very close to the conference date) as these are the most difficult to handle; thus an early registration fee, a late registration fee, and an onsite fee. Papers will be distributed electronically this year via a Springer website, which will be available for a limited time, instead of USB sticks. He noted that there were a few cases of legitimate visa requests that were not approved. Several members noted that his is a continuing and growing problem. There was some discussion about what data on previous attendees can be obtained to help future GCs to make decisions about writing invitation letters. At Preneel's suggesting, Ramzan agreed to update the GC guidelines to reflect lessons that he learned (w.r.t. visas). The board thanked the GC for his hard work. Officer's Reports for approval =================== Treasurer's Report Treasurer Handschuh presented a summary of 2010 IACR conferences and workshops to-date (TCC, FSE, PKC, Eurocrypt), which together show a slight surplus. It was noted that EC'10 came remarkably close to break-even despite having to plan (essentially) two conferences. She noted that the IACR targets break-even, and attempts to keep overhead at less than 2% of budget. The Marconi grant continues to provide registration waivers for student speakers. The board thanked Handschuh for her hard work. Appointees Reports for information ======================= Newsletter Editor (Preneel obo Wolf) Editor Wolf circulated his report via email prior to the meeting. The Newsletter is on track. JoC Editor in Chief EiC Franklin reported that the number of submissions is in line with previous years. The transition from previous EiC Maurer continues, as there are still several papers in his queue (older submissions awaiting final decision). A member voiced the opinion that much of the delay in publication is due to authors being slow in revising their work, and perhaps the JoC should be more active in pushing authors to update in a timely manner, perhaps setting a deadline. Membership Secretary (Preneel obo Halevi) Preneel presented slides from Halevi. The membership continues to grow. All online member services are stable and there are no issues to report. The Chinese association for cryptographic research now has access to the IACR reading room. Halevi is still waiting to hear from the Indian association. A member asked if it was possible to outsource IACR storage and services to a cloud provider. The discussion on this will be tabled, as Halevi (and Cachin and McCurley were not present). Preneel noted that PCI compliance is becoming more difficult, and that eventually we may not be able to handle this with volunteer work only. The board thanked Halevi for his continued hard work. Archivist (5) Archivist Orman noted that nearly all papers from 2008 to Spring 2008 are now available online. She raised the issue that it continues to be difficult to deal with some PC chairs regarding receiving papers for archiving. She noted that these can be provided to her by (for example) burning a CD and mailing it to her, or by uploading them to an IACR server. However, it is not the case that all PC chairs have access to the IACR server. Preneel noted that this issue should be handled by Cachin, McCurley and Halevi, and that he would discuss the issue with them. She also noted a redundancy in the online presentation of IACR papers, for example various tables of contents and bibtex files, and she would like the board to handle this matter. Internal Committee Reports for information ============================ Fellows Steering Committee (Preneel obo T. Okamoto) The Board prepared a short memo to the Fellows Steering Committee on the Board's obligation to periodically review the fellows program. A member noted that there are a number of "standard" IACR email addresses, and in some cases they are not sufficiently descriptive to allow the sender to know exactly to whom the email will go. Preneel will address this with Cachin. Election committee Chair Benaloh reminded that the election committee was previously formed. The nomination form has been prepared, and will be made public soon. Vaudenay will be the returning officer. Strategy ====== Electronic voting Benaloh disclosed that he has been asked to serve on the technical advisory board for Helios, and requested the board to discuss whether or not he should resign from that board and/or recuse himself from IACR board discussions about e-voting (as Helios is currently under review by the IACR for potential implementation of future IACR elections.) After some discussion, the board did not find any problem with Benaloh serving in both capacities; Preneel requested Benaloh to abstain from any voting on the adoption of Helios, and Benaloh agreed. Benaloh reminded the board of the history of the e-voting process, in particular summarizing the discussion from the Eurocrypt'10 BoD meeting regarding identified issues with the Helios system. The Helios team has addressed these issues to the e-voting committee's satisfaction. Prior to the meeting, Yvo Desmedt circulated a report on the integrity and privacy of the Helios system. The board reviewed Desmedt's document in detail. It was noted by some members that some of the concerns are actually about e-voting in general, not specific to Helios (e.g. key-logging software installed on systems used to cast a vote). After some additional discussion, the board thanked Desmedt for his report. A member wondered if other professional societies (or even governments) are planning to adopt Helios. Benaloh noted that it was previously used by UC-Louvain and Princeton; however, Helios has been careful to say that it should not be used at this point for governmental elections. A member asked about maintenance of Helios in the future, and it was noted that a not-for-profit has been formed to support Helios. It was moved to approve the following statement: "The IACR adopts the Helios remote e-voting system for future IACR elections (including 2010). At the same time, the IACR clearly publishes a statement that its use of this system does not constitute an endorsement of this or other remote-voting systems for public-sector elections." The motion passed with no objections and two abstentions, and the statement will be submitted for approval to the membership meeting at Crypto 2010. The e-voting committee will prepare a best-practices document following the election to capture lessons learned during the process. The board thanked the e-voting committee for their hard work on this difficult issue. It was suggested that the board address the matter of what kind of election should be used (e.g. plurality voting vs. other schemes). Preneel noted this as an action for discussion at a future IACR board meeting. Benaloh wondered if the IACR would allow Helios to be used for measurement of supposed ballot biases. In particular, that the order in which candidates appear on the ballot impacts the outcome of the election. By randomizing the order each time a ballot is produced, one could collect real experimental data on this impact. Preneel suggested that we wait on such experimentation for now. Ethical guidelines (Orman) (30) In response to a board request, Orman created (and circulated prior to the meeting) a draft set of ethical guidelines. Contained in the draft is a proposal to form a formal ethics committee. A member welcomed the existence of an ethics document, but did not support a formal ethics committee with a formal set of guiding rules. Instead, it was suggested that the board should designate a group of two or three directors and one chair to handle ethical issues as they arise. (The proposal in the draft suggests that the Vice President of the IACR should serve as the chair of an ethics committee.) This committee would be re-formed each year, at the Eurocrypt BoD meeting. It was recommended that the committee be allowed to work out its own procedures, rather than the board preparing a formal set of rules for the committee to follow. There was support for these modification to the draft proposal, and the board suggested to change the current draft prepared by Orman. Also, the PC chair guidelines should be updated to reflect the new ethics guidelines. There was some discussion about what information any sort of ethics committee should receive about cases, and the opinion of the board is that a committee should receive only what is necessary to decide the case. It was moved to adopt the draft proposal modified as noted above. With two abstentions and no objections, the motion passed. The approved document will be made available on the IACR website soon. Vaudenay, Quisquater will serve on initial committee, with the IACR Vice President as chair. IACR Publication strategy Continuing our discussion from the Eurocrypt'10 meeting, Preneel summarized the state of our deliberations. (Please see the Eurocrypt'10 BoD minutes for details.) He gave the highlights of the current offer from Springer regarding the JoC, and noted that the proposal still leaves some things open, e.g. the length of the contract, the meaning of "open access". He noted that this offer is an improvement over the previous one. (Preneel reminded the board that the Journal and the proceedings of IACR conferences are handled by two different business units.) Regarding LNCS proceedings, he reiterated the concern that there are multiple versions of papers, e.g. on the author's homepage, the IACR's archive, and SpringerLink. Some members echoed this concern. It was also noted that the quality of conference/workshops covered by LNCS is highly varied, and that this contributed to ISI dropping LNCS publications from its indexing system. A member wondered which countries give substantial weight to ISI's index, and the board was able to name a number of countries. A member asked what we know about organizations that provide professional copy editing services. Preneel replied that we don't have hard figures, but he expected such services to be expensive. There was a general discussion about the cost (both in terms of money and time) of copy editing, and which portions of the work might be manageable by IACR volunteers. In general, for high-quality and timely publications it seems that things could not be handled by volunteers. In summary, Preneel feels we are closer to having a full understanding of the costs and benefits of altering our current publication strategy, and that we should soon make a decision. However, no decision should be made at this meeting. A member suggested that the board should come up with a list of factors that were relevant for evaluating a publisher. The list should also include information on the relative importance of each factor. Some items on this list will be o How does the publisher fare with respect to indexing and citations (e.g. with ISI)? o What kind of open access options are supported (and for what cost)? o Can paper publishing be optional? o Who would hold copyrights, and for what time-frame? o Is copy editing provided, and if so by what mechanism? o What resources (mostly time) will IACR volunteers need to contribute to publishing? Scheduling of workshops The scheduling of IACR workshops, for example to avoid overlapping dates and (potentially) to support collocation, was discussed. TCC prefers to keep their own schedule. CHES is happy to collocate with conferences when possible, but prefers to continue moving locations (as opposed to, say, collocating with Crypto every year). FSE likewise prefers to move locations, but has nothing against collocation. In general, it seems that future collocation will only happen by fortunate coincidence. It was noted that, in large part, the organization of IACR's conferences and workshops has remained the same for many years, and it makes sense to revisit the matter given the growth of the field. (For example, it is much more competitive now to publish at Crypto and Eurocrypt than in earlier years.) There was some discussion about revising the current IACR layout of conferences and workshops. One idea was to focus on three events, larger and with more accepted papers. These larger events might have an "FSE track", and "CHES track", etc. Smaller, more focused workshops could be attached to the major events, as is done in other communities. Preneel made clear that this should not mean the abolition of the current workshops, but rather that CHES/FSE/theory papers would have publication opportunities throughout the year. The discussion was productive, and will be revisited at future meetings after getting additional input from the workshop steering committees. On "Confidential to IACR Board" (Preneel obo Naccache) Naccache wondered what exactly it means when there is a document with the statement "Confidential to IACR Board". Who determines confidentiality? What should be considered confidential? Members seemed to understand that the statement means, loosely, the information is not for dissemination beyond the IACR board. For example, it could be quite awkward if the details of discussions about potential program chairs was made available to the public. There were opposing opinions about whether or not there should be a formal definition of the term. In general, though, the board agreed on what is the intention of the statement. Moreover, that labeling of things as confidential should be left to the discretion of individual board members. Board members are of course free to object to such labeling and request that a publicly distributable version be made available, or simply to refuse to read something labeled as confidential. As a guideline to prevent unnecessary use of the "confidential" label, it was suggested that board members should restrict the use of "confidential" to matters that are personal, contractual, or have to do with pending litigation. (Note: there is no pending litigation.) Conference Chairs ============ Program chairs reports Benaloh noted that he had not received any PC chairs' reports since the last meeting, and so had nothing to report at this time. Crypto 2012 General Chair Selection The board deliberated over several excellent candidates and selected Lisa Yiqun Yin, who subsequently accepted. Crypto 2012 Program Chair Selection Several excellent candidates were nominated, and after discussion a candidate was selected. [ Rei Safavi-Naini subsequently accepted. ] Distinguished Lecturer =============== Asiacrypt 2012 Lecturer Several excellent candidates were nominated, and after discussion a candidate was selected. [ Dan Boneh subsequently accepted. ] A member commented that they felt there may be a slight bias towards selecting men as PC chairs, and women as general chairs. It was noted, however, that in recent history there have been two female Crypto program chairs and all general chairs have been male. Guidelines for Approval =============== Program Chair guidelines The PC guidelines were recently updated to reflect the IACR's new policy of having "junior" and "senior" PC chairs for the IACR flagship conferences. The board examined the new text. There was some discussion on how to handle the timing of PC chair selection by the board (the person who would become the "junior" chair of an upcoming conference) and the formation of the actual program committee. Traditionally, there was only a single chair, and this person was responsible for selecting the entire PC. It was suggested that the guidelines should suggest that the senior chair not complete formation of the committee until the junior chair is selected, thereby allowing the junior chair the opportunity to offer additional names. Additionally, the guidelines have been updated regarding the handling of copyright forms, and also the signing of the PC guideline agreement. There was some discussion about how best paper awards should be handled. In particular, how to deal with conflicts of interest. It was suggested that there should be a separate subcommittee within the PC to select a best paper candidate, to be approved by the full committee. This will be added, as advice only, to the guidelines. Some large conferences have adopted a "rebuttal period" in the review period. During this time, authors may submit a short rebuttal to reviewers comments. It was agreed that this could be useful, and the guidelines will be updated to encourage PC chairs to consider this option. Steering Committee guidelines Preneel will ask Cachin to create a new draft of the steering committee guidelines to reflect modifications suggested by Oded Goldreich. The board will discuss and approve the new version as soon as possible. Conferences since last BoD Meeting (5) ================================== Eurocrypt 2010 (Preneel obo Billet/Robshaw) Preneel reiterated that the Eurocrypt'10 GCs did a fantastic job of handling difficult circumstances. Forthcoming Conferences for information (20) ======================================= Asiacrypt 2010 (Matsumoto obo Ling) Matsumoto reported that all of the conference sites have been determined (the main site and banquet site). He noted that the Singaporean Tourism Board has lifted their previous sponsorship requirement of a full budget audit; instead, they now ask for the submission of a few invoices. As a result, 11K Singaporean dollars of sponsorship have been added to the budget. The budget is now finalized. Eurocrypt 2011 GC Lipmaa gave an overview of preparations for Eurocrypt'11 in Tallinn, Estonia. The main venue will be the Sokos Hotel Viru. The preliminary budget is projected to be break-even without sponsorship if attendance follows historical trends. Crypto 2011 GC Shrimpton reported that PC chair Rogaway has finalized his committee and will soon release the call-for-papers. Asiacrypt 2011 GC Kim reported that the venue is the Shilla in Seoul. There is a temporary website for Asiacrypt'11, which will be replaced once the program committee is fixed. Steering Committee Reports [and Workshop Proposals] ================================== Asiacrypt Steering Committee The Asiacrypt steering committee will soon be inviting proposals for the venue for Asiacrypt'13. TCC report TCC 2011 is at Brown University, and the steering committee has received a good bid for TCC 2012. PKC report Preneel obo Pointcheval reported on the dates for the next two PKCs. FSE report Preneel noted that next year there is a conflict of dates with the RSA conference. This is unfortunate, but unavoidable. For 2012 a co-location with NIST SHA-3's workshop is being explored. CHES status report Quisquater circulated to the board a set of slides. He summarized several joint events that arise from collocation of CHES with Crypto this year. There are currently 330 registrants, including about 150 CHES-Crypto registrants. The meeting was closed at 5:00 pm.