IACR Membership Meeting 25 May 2005 Aarhus, Denmark President Clark called the meeting to order at 15:48 About 10 members indicated this was their first membership meeting; President clark gave a brief introduction to the IACR and outlined the agenda for today. An announcement was made regarding those directors whose terms are set to expire this year, and indicated there would be elections to replace them. The president invited members to approach any board member to enter into the elections. He also indicated that bylaw amendments would be included on this year's ballot. ---- Treasurer Handschuh gave the IACR financial report. We were income-neutral for conferences this year, and membership levels are stable. Our current surplus is $441,000. A member asked why there was "N/A" for CHES income for last year; the treasurer indicated that CHES was not under the IACR last year and therefore we were not financially responsible for them. ---- The President presented plaques to Ivan Damgaard and Ronald Cramer for their roles in chairing EUROCRYPT 2005 ---- Cramer presented slides indicating various statistics about the conference. He also told a few stories about the PC meeting held during one day in Amsterdam earlier this year. 190 submissions, 33 accepted, more than 700 reviews. ---- The president announced upcoming conferences and workshops (CRYPTO 2005/6, ASIACRYPT 2005/6, EUROCRYPT 2006/7, PKC 2006, FSE 2006). He also solicited conference proposals for 2008. The president gave brief reports on the Journal of Cryptology and the IACR Newsletter. The SpringerLink login information for members is Loginname: iacr.multipleuser, password: JoC Niels Ferguson asked if there was a link to the password from the IACR newsletter. It seemed the answer was "no" though McCurley offered to do it. Clark announced the three new IACR fellows: Kevin McCurley, Jacques Stern, and Gus Simmons. The presentation will be tonight at the banquet (minus Professor Stern who had to leave early). He also gave nomination procedures for future fellows. Clark gave a report on the new hosting service and web-based services for IACR services and thanked Secretary McCurley for his efforts. He futher requested that members' email addresses be kept up-to-date. Clark reported on goods available on the IACR website, including proceedings and CD ROMs. =============== Open Discussion from the membership Steve Babbage -- How much value does the Journal have for the IACR membership? Clark -- the Journal is about half of the membership fee ($48 of $80 roughly). The journal has value to a group of people within our membership. In particular to those who get substantial "credit" for inclusion in the journal in academic and other research groups. The board is discussing this matter currently. Yvo Desmedt -- A scientific index ranked JoC as 5th best in theoretical computer science. Kevin McCurly -- How many would be upset if the JoC were electronic-only? Some number raised their hands. Moti Yung -- All other organizations (ACM, IEEE, etc) have one or more journals. It is a symbol of prestige and sets the tone and is important. As long as we are not bankrupt, we should support it. Yvo Desmedt -- If the journal were only electronic, it will be removed from the scientific index. Research labs and academic institutions will no longer count publications not indexed, so we need to be very careful with such decisions. Nigel Smart -- If the journal were gone, we'd be left only with conferences. We'd be left with websites for full versions of papers. Clark -- I met with Springer recently, and reported again that clicking through measures the "success" of a journal and this in turn is given to libraries as a measure of its level of demand. Also, librarians consider paper-form important. Kevin McCurley -- IBM cares about the journal's impact, but not so much which journal it is. We do distinguish between conferences. By the way, ISI does index electronic journals, and according to current standards the JoC would be indexed. I do agree we should not damage the reputation of the journal. Niels Ferguson -- I just wanted to thank the board and all volunteers for what they have done. IACR Member -- Why is the journal mailed to all members? Clark -- Our contract requires that all members take the journal. The contract expires at the end of 2007. Whether this continues is under discussion. Yvo Desmedt -- Price originally proposed the idea of mailing journal to all members and he was British. Now it's ironic that a Brit is questioning its value. The president thanked all for staying and adjourned the meeting at 16:40.