Preface to IACR Theory and Practice of Public Key Cryptography (PKC 2017)

The 20th IACR International Conference on Practice and Theory of Public-Key Cryptography (PKC 2017) was held March 28--31, 2017 in Amsterdam~(NL). The conference is sponsored by the International Association for Cryptologic Research (IACR) and has an explicit focus on public-key cryptography.

These proceedings, consisting of two volumes, feature 36 papers; these were selected by the Program Committee from 160 qualified submissions. Each submission was reviewed independently by at least three reviewers, or four in case of Program Committee member submissions. Following the initial reviewing phase, the submissions and their reviews were discussed over a period of one month, before final decisions were then made. During this discussion phase, the Program Committee made substantial use of a newer feature of the web submission/review software, which allows direct yet anonymous communication between the Program Committee and the authors; I think this interaction proved very useful in order to (try to) resolve pending issues and questions.

The reviewing and selection process was an intensive and time-consuming task, and I thank the members of the Program Committee, along with the external reviewers, for all their hard work and their excellent job. I also want to acknowledge Shai Halevi for his awesome web submission/review software, which tremendously simplifies the Program Chair's work, and I thank him for his 24/7 and always-prompt assistance.

The conference program also included two invited talks, one by Vipul Goyal on "Recent Advances in Non-Malleable Cryptography", and the other by Kenny Paterson on "The Evolution of Public Key Cryptography in SSL/TLS". I would like to thank the two invited speakers as well as all the other speakers for their contributions to the program.

I also want to thank all the authors who submitted papers; you made it very challenging for the Program Committee to decide on what should be "the best" submissions, --- which of course is very much a matter of taste and perspective. I know that having good papers rejected because of a tough competition, and because there is always some amount of randomness involved, is disappointing, but I am optimistic that these "unlucky" papers will find their place and get the deserved recognition.

Last but not least, I would like to thank Marc Stevens, the General Chair, for setting up a great conference and ensuring a smooth running of the event, and Ronald Cramer for his advisory support and allowing me to tap into his experience.