Minutes of the BoD Meeting at Eurocrypt '99
Board of Directors Meeting EuroCrypt '99 Prague 2 May 1999 Preface: On 20 March 1999, Journal Editor Feigenbaum brought to the attention of the Board a problem wherein papers accepted for a special issue of the Journal far exceeded the normal page count for a single issue. Following a discussion by e-mail, the Board approved the following proposal submitted by Feigenbaum by a vote of 10 to 2 with 1 abstention. I propose that the Board approve the expenditure of $20,000 for an exceptionally long "special issue" of the Journal of Cryptology. This issue will probably be one of the four issues of volume 13 (2000), but there is a chance that it will be the last issue of volume 12 (1999). It will be roughly the size of three normal issues (perhaps slightly larger). The rest of the issues in volume 13 (or 12) will be normal-sized issues. The subject of the special issue is secure multi-party function evaluation, and the editorial board member in charge of it is Oded Goldreich. The $20,000 covers all production, printing, and mailing costs and will thus have no effect on the price that Springer charges subscribers, including libraries, for J. Cryptology. ________________________________________________________________________ The Board President called the meeting to order at 10:06am. Present were Benaloh, Berson, Biham, Cachin, Clark, Franklin, Hruby, Landrock, Maurer, McCurley, E. Okamoto, Preneel, Upton, and Van Oorschot. Proxies were held for Beaver by McCurley, for Feigenbaum by Upton, for T. Okamoto by Maurer, and for Vandewalle by Preneel. It was noted that there would be no report this meeting from Journal Editor Feigenbaum but a report was promised for the Board meeting in August. ************************************************************************ Minutes of the 23 August 1998 meeting were approved with modifications. Motion by Preneel seconded by Berson carried 9 to 0. ************************************************************************ ________________________________________________________________________ EuroCrypt '99 General Chair Hruby reported on the conference. The conference budget was within expected bounds. The budget anticipated 380 attendees. At that point, 373 had registered. [Final registration was 383.] Data was provided for 375 registrants (sic) among whom 315 were full charge (146 early and 169 late) and 60 were student rate (38 early and 22 late). $23,000 had been advanced by the IACR, of which $10,000 was returned to the IACR, $10,000 was used for Program Committee expenses, and $2,400 was used for booking the concert. Clark asked about totals and was told that the $10,000 returned to the IACR was borrowed at a rate of approximately 30 Czech Koruna per U.S. Dollar and returned to the IACR at a rate of approximately 35 Czech Koruna per U.S. Dollar but that the conference was expected to produce s surplus of approximately $10,000. Clark praised ITC (local arrangements company) for their promptness and general competence at organization. All agreed with applause. The quality of the local organization precluded any need for a visit from the Secretariat and thereby reduced costs. Upton asked whether the student registration count was typical and was told that 10% students was the normal count. McCurley expressed concern about the lack of growth in attendance numbers over recent years. ________________________________________________________________________ A EuroCrypt 2000 status report was given by Preneel. The conference will be held in Bruges, Belgium, 14-18 May 2000. Joos Vandewalle will be the General Chair and Bart Preneel will be the Program Chair. Two sheets of information were distributed on planning and budget. Some information can be obtained at http://www.esat.kuleuven.ac.be/cosic/eurocrypt2000/ and at http://www.brugge.be/ and http://www.brugge.be/toerisme/en/meetinge.htm. [Note the last URL is corrected from the information sheet.] The conference sessions will be in a flat lecture room with a 500-person capacity. All hotels will be in the old city within walking distance from the conference site. The city has 1500 hotel rooms that generally have no vacancy in May. 300 three and four star hotel rooms have already been booked. 200 two star hotel and bed & breakfast rooms are in the process of being booked. Advanced payment of first night's hotel will be necessary. A professional conference organizer is now doing the work for $15 per participant and a fixed fee of $3,000 rather than the typical fee of 8% on hotel bookings. There are a variety of hotel booking and payment options for participants. Landrock suggested that individuals handle their own booking. McCurley seconded this but expressed concern that some participants might find no hotels available. Clark suggested that the Secretariat can co-ordinate booking. Upton expressed that the intent was to have central booking. Van Oorschot questioned the effect on the registration forms. Upton suggested offloading work to the secretariat whenever possible. Landrock suggested budgeting for 400 participants. Preneel suggested pre-booking Hotel Montanus for Board members and encouraged all Board members to stay at this hotel. ________________________________________________________________________ AsiaCrypt Steering Committee Chair E. Okamoto presented details on upcoming AsiaCrypt conferences. AsiaCrypt '99 will be in Singapore. It is not sponsored by the IACR. Hotel costs will be approximately $80 per night and registration will be approximately $400. AsiaCrypt 2000 will be held in Kioto Japan, 3-7 Dec 2000. It is sponsored by the IACR, and details will be forthcoming at the Crypto meeting in August. AsiaCrypt 2001 is being recommended for Taiwan together with possible General Chair and Program Chair recommendations. McCurley questioned when final decisions could be made for the General Chair and Program Chair for AsiaCrypt 2001. Consensus was that the current timing should be continued. ________________________________________________________________________ A report on EuroCrypt 2001 proposals was given by Clark. There are no active proposals for EuroCrypt 2001. A planned proposal for Villach, Austria (which was later moved to Vienna because of logistic concerns) was withdrawn two days prior to the board meeting. It was conjectured that the organizers were dissatisfied with the apparent requirement that the venue be changed from Villach to Vienna. Clark discussed plans to solicit bids from potential organizers in Italy, U.K. (Bath), Greece, Sweden, Norway, U.K. (Scotland), Ireland, Netherlands, and Poland. McCurley suggested that the IACR web site resume the (discontinued) solicitation of proposals for EuroCrypt hosts. Clark promised to vigorously pursue the U.K.-Bath option and expressed concerns that the Santa Barbara meeting might be too late to commit to a site. McCurley wondered if a permanent conference coordinator position within the Board would make sense. Berson suggested that European Board members take the lead in this regard. Landrock and Clark agreed to serve as primary Board contacts for proposals. Clark asked for Board consensus that proposals must be able to accommodate 500 participants and that hotel accommodations should be near the conference venue. Berson asked whether Israel is, for these purposes, part of Europe. The consensus was that it is. McCurley urged that the local organizer be a regular member of the crypto "community". McCurley asked whether the Board should appoint the Program Chair for EuroCrypt independent of the selection of the local venue. Maurer urged that the Board should select the Program Chair. Landrock agreed to make a presentation at the Business Meeting to solicit proposals. Van Oorschot suggested that the Board consider Program Chair proposals as part of any bids but that such proposals not be required and that the same be true for AsiaCrypt. [Clarification: We should make it clear that submitters of bids are expected to honor their commitment even if their recommendation for Program Chair is rejected.] It was requested that an announcement be made to all EuroCrypt participants that the Business Meeting would immediately follow the final technical talk on Wednesday. McCurley suggested that discussion of Program Chairs be held at the Santa Barbara Board meeting. ________________________________________________________________________ Preneel initiated a discussion about the relationship between the Fast Software Encryption Workshop (FSE) and the IACR. He asked that the IACR hold copyrights for FSE publications and asked whether FSE might enjoy the same relationship with the IACR that used to be enjoyed by AsiaCrypt. McCurley asked to what extent the IACR should affiliate with other conferences and with how many other conferences. He also asked about the intellectual content responsibility for copyrights owned by the IACR. Berson observed that copyright ownership does not imply endorsement of content. Landrock suggested that the IACR support FSE and that other conferences be considered on a case-by-case basis. McCurley told of meeting with Springer-Verlag regarding the contract for the Journal but that no contract yet exists for IACR proceedings. He said that the IACR owns copyrights for EuroCrypt '99 papers and that Springer-Verlag would have exclusive publication rights for the first three years and non-exclusive rights thereafter. Biham noted that the current copyright agreements do not mention journal publication of related results. McCurley expressed a dislike for "duplicate" publication. Biham suggested that the IACR not enforce its copyright against journals. Benaloh asked whether the IACR should pledge to not enforce copyrights against journals. Cachin urged that no such pledge be included within the copyright form. Biham asked how much a publication must be changed to constitute a new work. Clark expressed a preference to not make any explicit licensing policy and suggested that licensing is the correct alternative to copyright re-assignment. Berson voiced the intent of IACR to be a benevolent copyright holder. ************************************************************************ The proposal that IACR be willing to become the copyright holder for FSE publications was made by Preneel and seconded by Maurer. It carried 15 to 0. ************************************************************************ ________________________________________________________________________ Berson asked that IACR strategic planning include the long-term relationships between the IACR and other conferences. McCurley disapproved of the IACR taking direct responsibilities for other conferences asserting that the purpose of the IACR is to support the scientific activities of its members by maintaining the current conferences, journal, and newsletter. Clark offered that strategic planning is beyond this kind of operational planning and should include long-term goals and directions of the IACR. Berson suggested considering the formation of an organizing committee and seeking better used of technologies such as conference calling to facilitate Board discussions. McCurley expressed the opinion that the Board has dealt effectively with these matters in the past with the current structure. ________________________________________________________________________ At this point the meeting recessed for lunch. ________________________________________________________________________ During and after lunch, various strategic items and topics of interest to individual members were discussed, and new Board members were asked to tell what issues were most important to them. McCurley stated his view of IACR's mission was to make sure that conferences run smoothly and to maintain scientific integrity. He also indicated his strong interest in moving towards electronic publishing. Cachin expressed an interest in having an electronic preprint server for cryptographic publications. McCurley voiced potential problems with copyrights of materials on a preprint server and questioned who would manage it. He also questioned the utility of having yet another place to search for papers. Cachin expressed an opinion that administration would be minimal but acknowledged possible complications with respect to anonymous submissions and copyrights. Maurer asked how we can best support the field. Benaloh asked whether we should accept more papers and noted that the original purpose of anonymity was to avoid favoritism. Clark suggested a triage of papers into three categories: archival papers, recent papers (about one year old), and late-breaking papers, and he suggested that different mechanisms might be best suited for each category. Maurer suggested considering bifurcating crypto into a Theoretical Cryptography conference and applied conferences. Preneel expressed a preference against this kind of specialization. McCurley asked that there be a concrete proposal on a preprint server. Cachin recounted many of the disparate issues that this touches upon. ________________________________________________________________________ A discussion then followed on the topic of anonymous submissions. McCurley noted that in a recent Business meeting, the membership voted to maintain the anonymous submission policy. Preneel said that a recent poll among Program Committee members was nearly evenly divided on the issue. Biham asked what obligations the authors had to not announce their results during the Program Committee review process. After discussion of some extreme examples (such as e-mailing an unsolicited, non-anonymous copy of a submission to all Program Committee members), Preneel suggested a "push versus pull" distinction wherein authors should feel free to post copies of their work on web pages, preprint servers, and the like but should not mail out unsolicited copies to Committee members. Upton urged that we make clear that we don't discourage non-anonymous distribution of submissions. Berson suggested that anonymous submissions may no longer be practical. Clark offered a proposal that we clarify the Program Committee guidelines to specify that we do not discourage distribution and re-visit the issue of anonymous submissions at the next EuroCrypt Board meeting. McCurley expressed concerns about changing the policy back and forth and agreed to put the topic on the agenda for the Santa Barbara Board meeting. ________________________________________________________________________ Biham then raised the issue of creating a server for making technical reports available for fast distribution. McCurley asserted that Springer-Verlag would object to this. Cachin expressed the opinion that such a server would be helpful to the research community. ________________________________________________________________________ Franklin listed important issues to him as maintaining IACR excellence, abolishing anonymous submissions, and observing the experiences of other institutions with regard to electronic publishing and distribution with an eye towards updating IACR policies. Hruby offered that a publications server would facilitate updates to publications. ________________________________________________________________________ Benaloh listed maintenance of IACR excellence as his paramount issue and expressed some concerns over the Board's recent decision-making processes. Clark suggested that the decision-making processes need refinement and that e-mail is often the wrong medium. ________________________________________________________________________ McCurley suggested that the Board form a sub-committee to look more carefully at publishing issues. A sub-committee was formed consisting of McCurley, Biham, Cachin, and (pending her consent) Feigenbaum and charged with delivering a report at the Santa Barbara Board meeting. ________________________________________________________________________ Preneel then raised the issue of awards and honors. He said that he had found no consensus on whether to establish best paper awards and urged that we should establish clear mechanisms for inviting IACR Distinguished Lectures. Maurer asked whether the Board should decide on Distinguished Lecturers. Preneel asserted that clear and regular procedures are paramount. Van Oorschot said that we need to know what procedures, if any, exist. Maurer suggested that Preneel should prepare a formal proposal for the Santa Barbara Board meeting. Benaloh expressed the opinion that only the Board should award Distinguished Lecture awards. This was confirmed as the consensus of the Board, and Maurer agreed to include this conclusion in the Program Chair guidelines. McCurley suggested that we have an IACR Distinguished Lecture at AsiaCrypt 2000 as part of the first IACR sponsored AsiaCrypt. ************************************************************************ A proposal was offered by Preneel and seconded by Berson that candidates for IACR Distinguished Lecturer be nominated and submitted to the IACR president by August 1 of each year and that the Board may make a selection from among those nominated. The proposal carried 15 to 0. ************************************************************************ ________________________________________________________________________ McCurley then raised the issue of IACR elections. Clark suggested that the Secretariat can and should handle the distribution and collection of election ballots. Landrock, Biham, and Franklin agreed to serve on the election committee. Benaloh asked whether is was necessary to vote on the By-Laws again to correct problems introduced by printing errors in last year's amendments. The consensus of the Board was that another vote was unnecessary. Preneel asked that the By-Laws be maintained in ASCII format. ________________________________________________________________________ McCurley then raised the issue of how to best use and oversee the job of IACR Membership Secretary. Clark volunteered to serve as liaison to co-ordinate Board issues with the Membership Secretary. Upton expressed the view that we need closer contact with the Membership Secretary and suggested that the Membership Secretary either be a member of the Board or be directly overseen by a single member of the Board. Clark commented that Y2K compliance was going well but that updated versions of Access software would be necessary to achieve compliance. Benaloh offered to obtain and deliver copies of Access 2000 to Clark, Preneel, and the Membership Secretary. ________________________________________________________________________ Upton then presented a financial report stating that both the EuroCrypt and Crypto conferences returned surpluses of between $10,000 and $20,000 in 1998, that total IACR reserves were now in excess of $200,000, and that 1998 tax filing was underway. Upton stated that he did not anticipate recommending an increase in IACR member dues. McCurley asked that a more detailed report of IACR finances be published in the Newsletter. ________________________________________________________________________ Cachin then reported on the Newsletter. McCurley noted that Cachin had assumed administration of the IACR Web Site. Congratulations were given by all. Cachin reported that the Newsletter has been moved to the Web Site and solicited conference reports for the Newsletter. Clark asked how many paper copies of the Newsletter were being distributed. Cachin answered that anyone who wishes may ask the Membership Secretary to print and mail a copy of the Newsletter. Clark expressed the opinion that the Membership Secretary has provided good service to the IACR and noted the importance of members keeping their addresses current with the Membership Secretary. Hruby stated that 10% of this year's EuroCrypt announcements were returned by the postal service as undeliverable. McCurley offered thanks to Cachin for his efforts. Applause was given by all. McCurley offered thanks to Upton for his efforts. Applause was given by all. ________________________________________________________________________ Since Beaver was absent, no report on Crypto '99 was presented. Cachin noted that no Call For Participation had yet been distributed for Crypto '99. [Beaver subsequently said that he was following the usual schedule by not sending out registration materials too early.] ________________________________________________________________________ Franklin reported that Crypto 2000 planning was proceeding uneventfully. ________________________________________________________________________ McCurley suggested that there be an integrated discussion at the Santa Barbara Board meeting to decide on Program Chair lists and other issues for EuroCrypt, Crypto, and AsiaCrypt in 2001. ________________________________________________________________________ McCurley then gave an update on the status of the CD-ROM of past Crypto and EuroCrypt proceedings. He said that after much work, the CD-ROM was complete and had been delivered to Springer-Verlag for reproduction and distribution and that copies would be available for sale during this conference. He said that Springer-Verlag had agreed to send out two copies to everyone who had ordered one in recompense for the production delays. Clark noted that the address labels had become out of date and urged that updates be sent to iacrmem@iacr.org by May 12 to ensure that the CD-ROMs are sent to current addresses. Clark also noted the outstanding, "super-human" work done by McCurley on the CD-ROM. Applause was given by all. Clark also asked that Springer-Verlag be urged to make the CD-ROM available to IACR members at the original IACR discounted price. In addition, Clark noted that CD-ROM sales through Amazon.com obtained via an IACR link could be eligible for a 5-15% kickback to IACR. He also suggested that one of the copies available for sale be held for a quality control check. [Note: It was subsequently discovered that there were problems with the CD-ROMs on some platforms, and correction before distribution was anticipated. Also Clark obtained a commitment from Springer-Verlag to offer the CD-ROMs for sale at a discounted price.] ************************************************************************ A proposal was offered by Van Oorschot and seconded by Upton that decisions made by e-mail should be included in the following Board meeting minutes. The proposal carried 15 to 0. ************************************************************************ ________________________________________________________________________ A brief discussion then followed about items to be included in the Business meeting. Berson asked that attendees be reminded that they are, unless they've specifically asked not to be, IACR members. McCurley stated that he would remind members of the general IACR functions, announce upcoming conferences and meetings, update members on the CD-ROM and the May 12 deadline for updating addresses, remind members of the Newsletter submission deadline of May 31, report that both IACR sponsored conferences produced surpluses during the prior year, and tell new members how they could receive membership for the 1999 calendar year. ________________________________________________________________________ Action items noted by McCurley included EuroCrypt 2001 site selection, upcoming IACR elections, and distribution of the CD-ROM. ________________________________________________________________________ McCurley then moved to adjourn. The motion was seconded by Clark and carried unanimously at 4:49pm. Respectfully submitted Josh Benaloh IACR Secretary
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