History of the IACR

Kevin McCurley, with help of others

The event that led to the formation of IACR was the Crypto 81 conference that was held at University of California, Santa Barbara in August 24-26, 1981. The proceedings were published as a tech report from UCSB, and the front matter is here . The organizing committee for this conference was:

Establishment of the Organization

The Crypto '81 conference was followed the next year with Crypto '82 at the same location in Santa Barbara. In the preface of the proceedings of Crypto '83, David Chaum mentioned that he had suggested the formation of IACR at Crypto '82. The IACR was formed on June 16, 1983, when initial articles of incorporation were filed in the State of Nevada. The original members of the board listed in the articles of incorporation were:

The first business meeting of the organization took place at Crypto '83.

Efforts to become a tax-exempt organization began in 1984, but stalled until 1986 when Tom Berson took over the role of Secretary/Treasurer and filed the application for tax exempt status in 1986. At that time the board was listed as:

The original bylaws stated that the board would consist of at most 13 members. Original board members had no expiration on their terms, and it is unclear exactly when they became members. The early history of the IACR was outlined by Tom Berson in the filing to the Internal Revenue Service requesting tax exempt status as a 501(c)3 corporation. This document is from March, 1986.

At some point between 1986 and 1990 the general chairs of Crypto and Eurocrypt were added to the board. The exact date for this action is unclear. The CryptoDB database contains names for all general chairs of Eurocrypt and Crypto, but it's not clear when they became voting board members.

There was a sequence of draft changes to the bylaws during the period from 1986 to 1990. At some point the newsletter editor became a member of the board. This position was later renamed to communications secretary, some time after 2009.

After a formal change to the bylaws in 1990, there became nine director positions who were elected and served three year terms, with staggered terms so that each year three new directors were elected. In order to accomodate these terms, some of the original directors agreed to serve one-year terms to stagger the elections.

In addition to the change on director terms in 1990, the original position of secretary/treasurer was split into two separate positions, and a new position of vice president was created. These terms were filled by the appointment of Ingemar Ingemarsson as Vice President, and the appointment of Kevin McCurley as Treasurer.

The officers were originally elected for two year terms, but there was a modification to the bylaws in 1994 that changed the terms to three years. Another change in the bylaws created a new position of membership secretary beginning in 1995. The first membership secretary was Andy Clark, who had already been performing the task for several years.

Following a vote in the board in August 1996, the general chairs of conferences began serving on the board in the year prior to their conference, in addition to the year that they managed the conference. This change took effect in 1998 when the bylaws were amended in November 1997 . The general chair of Asiacrypt became a member of the board starting in 1999, again due to a change in the bylaws .

A list of the members of the board since the organization was formed is listed here .

Conferences and Publications of the IACR

The early publications of IACR consisted of proceedings from the Crypto and Eurocrypt conferences. Crypto began in 1981, and a report on Crypto '82 was published by David Kahn in Cryptologia the following year:

At the initiative of David Chaum the organizer of Crypto '82, some attendees met the last day to begin organizing what they tentatively called an International Association for Cryptologic Research. Its main functions would be (1) to coordinate meetings on cryptology as to time, place and program and in some cases to run them, and (2) to publish a bulletin to give notice of conferences and of cryptologic sessions other conferences. Members of the organizing committee are Chaum; Henry J. Beker of RACAL-Comsec Ltd. in Salisbury, England; Whitfield Diffie of BNR in Palo Alto, California; Robert R. Jueneman of Satellite Business Systems in McLean, Virginia; Ernest F. Brickell of Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, New Mexico; Stephen Kent of Bolt, Beranek & Newman in Cambridge, Massachusetts; and David Kahn of Great Neck, New York, an editor of Cryptologia.
Crypto '83 became the first conference officially sponsored by IACR. As of 2018, Crypto has been held every year at UCSB.

Eurocrypt

The Crypto '81 conference was followed by another conference held at Burg Feuerstein in Germany on March 29-April 2, 1982. This conference was not called "Eurocrypt" but a proceedings was published by Springer-Verlag and it was regarded by some as the first Eurocrypt. In 1983 there was a conference called Eurocrypt, held in Udine, Italy, and which David Chaum attributes as having been sponsored in part by IACR . A report on this conference was written by David Kahn and published in Cryptologia that year. This began a long series of Eurocrypt conferences that have been sponsored by IACR.

Journal of Cryptology

The IACR established the Journal of Cryptology in 1988, with Ernie Brickell as the first Editor-in-Chief. The Editor-in-Chief of the Journal was added as a member of the board of directors. The inaugural announcement of the journal appeared in 1987, and lists the original editors and scope.

Asiacrypt

Starting in 1990, the Australasian cryptographic community started to organize conferences, beginning with Auscrypt 1990 in Sydney, Australia. That conference led to the establishment of the Asiacrypt conference, which spans the Australasian cryptographic community and is held in a different location each year. Asiacrypt has been sponsored by IACR since 2000.

Cryptographic Hardware and Embedded Systems

The Conference on Cryptographic Hardware and Embedded Systems (CHES) started in 1999, and has been sponsored by IACR since 2004. The focus of this conference is on all aspects of cryptographic hardware and security in embedded systems. This conference switched the publishing model to an open-access journal starting in 2018.

Fast Software Encryption (FSE)

The Conference on Fast Software Encryption (FSE) started in 2001, and has been sponsored by the IACR since 2004. FSE concentrates on fast and secure primitives for symmetric cryptography, including the design and analysis of block ciphers, stream ciphers, encryption schemes, analysis and evaluation tools, hash functions, and MAC algorithms. This conference switched the publishing model to an open-access journal starting in 2016.

Public Key Cryptography Conference (PKC)

The International Conference on Practice and Theory in Public Key Cryptography (PKC) has been sponsored by the IACR since 2003. PKC has been the main annual conference focusing on all aspects of public-key cryptography, attracting cutting-edge results from world-renowned scientists in the area. PKC oversight is provided by the PKC Steering Committee. Proceedings are published by Springer-Verlag.

Theory of Cryptography Conference (TCC)

The Theory of Cryptography Conference is an IACR area conference that has been held every year since 2004. It focuses on paradigms, approaches and techniques used to conceptualize, define, and provide solutions to natural cryptographic problems. Proceedings are published by Springer-Verlag.

Real World Cryptography Symposium (RWC)

RWC was started in 2012 as a one-off meeting to celebrate the 100th Anniversary of Alan Turing's birth by Kenny Paterson and Nigel Smart in Cambridge. It sparked considerable interest from industry resulting in a second meeting co-organized by Dan Boneh in 2023 in Stanford. From that it grew to the meeting we have today, becoming an IACR event in 2018. The Levchin Prize has awarded at RWC since 2016

Communications in Cryptology (CiC)

Communications in Cryptology is an open-access journal being launched in 2024 for original research papers on any cryptologic topic.