Minutes of the Business Meeting at Eurocrypt 2000

Business Meeting
Eurocrypt 2000
Brugge
17 May 2000

IACR President McCurley began the meeting at 17:30.

He reminded conference attendees that they were all members of the IACR
unless they had explicitly declined membership.  He described the history of
the IACR which began in 1983 and has grown to 1300 members, and he described
activities of the IACR including its conferences, the Journal of Cryptology,
the Newsletter, and the preprint archive.  He invited members to explore the
IACR website at http://www.iacr.org.

McCurley then described the IACR status as a 501C organization chartered in
the U.S. state of Nevada.

He then introduced the Officers and Directors of the IACR.

McCurley then described the elections that would be held in the fall of 2000
for board positions beginning in 2001.  The Elections Committee was
introduced as consisting of Clark (as returning officer), Kim, and Maurer.
[Benaloh has since been substituted for Maurer on the Election Committee.]

McCurley then described the following upcoming IACR conferences.

Crypto 2000 will be held 20-24 August 2000 in Santa Barbara.  Matt Franklin
is the General Chair and Mihir Bellare is the Program Chair.

Asiacrypt 2000 will be held 3-7 December 2000 in Kyoto, Japan.  Tsutomu
Matsumoto is the General Chair and Tatsuaki Okamoto is the Program Chair.
The submission deadline was 25 May 2000.

Eurocrypt 2001 General Chair Posch described the next Eurocrypt conference.
Eurocrypt 2001 will be held 6-11 May 2001 in Innsbruck, Austria.  The
General Chair is Reinhard Posch and the Program Chair is Birgit Pfitzmann.
The conference website is at http://www.ec2001.ocg.at

Crypto 2001 will be held 19-23 August 2001 in Santa Barbara.  The General
Chair is Dave Balenson and the Program Chair is Joe Kilian.

Asiacrypt 2001 will be held 9-13 December 2001 on the Gold Coast of
Australia.  Ed Dawson will be the General Chair and Colin Boyd will be the
Program Chair.

McCurley then told the audience that the IACR Secretariat is administered by
Conference Services of the University of California at Sanata Barbara and
that they handle all IACR membership issues.  They can be reached at
iacrmem@iacr.org.
________________________________________________________________________

IACR Treasurer Langford then reported on Finances.  She said that the IACR
maintains a strong reserve of approximately $200,000 (which is approximately
the cost of a single IACR conference).  She reported that Eurocrypt '99
broke even and that Crypto '99 returned a surplus.  1999 dues were reported
as $80 for regular members and $40 for students.  Approximately 70% of the
dues were described as paying for the Journal of Cryptology, $10 going to
UCSB for IACR Secretariat services, and the remainder paying for the IACR
web site, Newsletter, and other miscellaneous items.
________________________________________________________________________

McCurley then described the IACR Newsletter and introduced editor Cachin.
He said that the Newletter is electronic and available on the web.  It
contains book reviews, conference announcements, job advertisements, and
other information of interest to the community.  The deadline for
submissions was 30 May 2000 and its address is newsletter@iacr.org.

Editor Cachin then described the Newsletter in somewhat greater detail
including its thrice yearly publication schedule and its URL of
http://www.iacr.org/newsletter.

Cachin then described the IACR preprint archive.  It accepts preprints,
afterprints, and any other technical contributions to the community.  Mihir
Bellare serves as editor of the preprint server and Cachin manages
maintenance.

McCurley then gave the preprint server URL of http://eprint.iacr.org.
________________________________________________________________________

McCurley then opened the floor for other business.


One member expressed a dislike for paying for the Eurocrypt conference in US
dollars rather than Euros.

McCurley responded that membership services are under revision.  Currently
mailings are sent from the Secretariat in Santa Barbara, and the Secretariat
has also collected fees as a convenience.  He said that it was not clear how
future conferences would be organized.

Membership Secretary Beaver noted that if the IACR collects fees in Europe,
it may be difficult to avoid paying VAT -- potentially increasing costs by
15%.  He added that handling money can be difficult for a General Chair and
is often best left to the Secretariat.

Cachin asked if currency mattered when most payments were made by credit
card.

Another member asked if it would be better for IACR to avoid currency
conversion risks.

McCurley acknowledged that there are risks and that Beaver is exploring
alternatives.  He said that no solutions were optimal and mentioned that
even web-based registration has only been explored and contains its own set
of advantages and concerns.


A member asked how the venues for conferences are chosen.

McCurley responded that many factors are considered.  Among those he listed
were that the conference be hosted by a General Chair who is a responsible
member of the IACR community, that the venue provide open access to members
of virtually all nationalities, affordability, availability of
accommodations, weather, geographic diversity, and political stability.  He
said that the Board then considers proposals and votes on alternatives.

A straw pole was then taken on changing the Santa Barbara venue for the
Crypto conference.  A slight majority appeared to be in favor of maintaining
the Santa Barbara venue.


Diffie then inquired as to whether the real purpose of Business Meetings was
to raise member dues.  [No increase in dues is anticipated.]


A member asked how long the Crypto conferences could avoid parallel
sessions.

McCurley responded that the general feeling was that parallel sessions were
unnecessary.


A member asked if there was a conflict between the eprint server and the
anonymous paper submissions policy.

McCurley responded that there was much momentum behind the anonymous
submissions policy and that it was unlikely to change in the near future.


A member asked if there was a conflict between the eprint server and the
IACR copyright assignment form.

McCurley responded that the new copyright form assigns copyright to the IACR
-- largely for long-term archival purposes.  The IACR only "asks" that
authors refrain from publishing on the web for 12 months -- generally to
maintain good relations with Springer-Verlag.

The member then asked if the lack of a clear copyright policy alienates
Springer-Verlag.

Board member Van Oorschot suggested that a possible solution would be to use
the eprint server only as a preprint server.

The member asked about full papers.

Van Oorschot expressed the opinion that there would be no problem so long as
the full paper were different from the copyrighted paper.

Another member asked if derivative works would be a problem.

Board member Berson responded that the IACR has no plans to sue itself.

The first member suggested using the Gnu public license.
________________________________________________________________________

McCurley adjourned the Business Meeting at 18:05.
________________________________________________________________________



Respectfully submitted
Josh Benaloh
IACR Secretary