IACR Crypto 2008, Preface

CRYPTO 2008, the 28th Annual International Cryptology Conference, was sponsored by the International Association for Cryptologic Research (IACR) in cooperation with the IEEE Computer Society Technical Committee on Security and Privacy and the Computer Science Department of the University of California at Santa Barbara. The conference was held in Santa Barbara, California, August 17--21, 2008. Susan Langford served as the General Chair of CRYPTO 2008, and I had the privilege of serving as the Program Chair.

The conference received 184 submissions, and all were reviewed by the Program Committee. Each paper was assigned at least three reviewers, while submissions co-authored by Program Committee members were reviewed by at least five people. All submissions were anonymous, and the identity of the authors were not revealed to committee members. During the first phase of the review process, the Program Committee, aided by reports from 142 external reviewers,

142 from external-reviewers file
+ 1 (anonymous)
produced a total of 611 reviews in all.
599 reviews in system
+ 4 ("Review 1")
+ 8 ("first review")
Then, committee members discussed these papers in depth over a period of 8 weeks using an electronic messaging system, in the process writing 1400 discussion messages. After careful deliberation, the Program Committee selected 32 papers for presentation. The authors of accepted papers were given 5 weeks to prepare final versions for these proceedings. These revised papers were not subject to editorial review and the authors bear full responsibility for their contents.

Gilles Brassard delivered the 2008 IACR Distinguished Lecture. The Best Paper Award was announced at the conference. Dan Bernstein served as the chair of the Rump Session, a forum for short and entertaining presentations on recent work of both a technical and non-technical nature.

I would like to thank everyone who contributed to the success of CRYPTO 2008. Shai Halevi provided software for facilitating the reviewing process that was of great help throughout the Program Committee's work, and I am especially grateful for his assistance. Alfred Menezes and Shai Halevi served as advisory members of the Program Committee, and I am grateful to them, and Arjen Lenstra and Bart Preneel, for their cogent advice. Susan Langford and others played a vital role in organizing the conference. Also, I am deeply grateful to the Program Committee for their hard work, enthusiasm, and conscientious efforts to ensure that each paper received a thorough and fair review. Thanks also to the external reviewers, listed on the following pages, for contributing their time and expertise. Finally, I would like to thank all the authors who submitted papers to CRYPTO 2008 for submitting their best research.

August 2008                   David Wagner
CRYPTO 2008 Program Chair