Membership meeting - Eurocrypt 2019 Wednesday May 22, 2019 (Supporting slides are available on the IACR website.) President Christian Cachin opened the meeting at 16h02, giving a brief overview of the IACR, its conference/workshops, etc. He reminded the membership that three of the directors and all four officers have terms expiring this year, and encourages members to run for office. The Cryptology ePrint Archive has a new co-editor: Joppe Bos will replace Sasha Boldyreva. The Presidents thanks Sasha for all her work. The President reminds the Members that the upcoming Schools deadline is June 30 and encourages good proposals. The President explains that the annual IACR Distinguished Lecture is awarded by the IACR to people who have made important contributions to cryptology research. The lecture alternates from Eurocrypt to Crypto to Asiacrypt. Currently, the IACR Distinguished Lecture is awarded to Cynthia Dwork (2019, Eurocrypt), and Silvio Micali (2020, Crypto). Test-of-time award, this is the first conference to award this. This award is given yearly for each one of the three IACR General Conferences (Eurocrypt, Crypto, and Asiacrypt) for a paper with a lasting impact on the field. The selected 3 papers for 2019 are: * Fuzzy Extractors: How to Generate Strong Keys from Biometrics and Other Noisy Data - Yevgeniy Dodis, Leonid Reyzin, Adam D. Smith - Eurocrypt 2004 * Multicollisions in Iterated Hash Functions. Application to Cascaded Constructions - Antoine Joux - Crypto 2004 * How Far Can We Go Beyond Linear Cryptanalysis? - Thomas Baigneres, Pascal Junod, Serge Vaudenay - Asiacrypt 2004 Treasurer Brian LaMacchia gave a report summarizing the IACR's finances. He highlighted the fact that the IACR has a robust financial position. Over the past year (5/2018-4/2019) student speakers support totaled around USD 60,000 and schools support totaled around USD 29,000. The Treasurer shows an inflation-adjusted figure for the three General Conference registration fees. This highlights that the current registration fees have remained quite stable. The treasurer did recommend to not change the current IACR membership fee. Cachin thanked LaMacchia for his continued hard work. Kenny Paterson asks why there is downwards trend for TCC in terms of conference attendance from 145 in 2015 to 101 in 2018 (decreasing each year). There is no clear reason why this is happening. Membership Secretary Douglas Stebila gave a report and showed that membership has increased significantly in 2019 due to the incorporation of Real World Crypto. There has been work on the membership system which was launched at Crypto 2018. This includes new features such as download receipts, attendee lists, and JoC subscription information. Also, a lot of work has been done on the conference registration system. Cachin thanked Stebila for his continued hard work. For the online services Mike Rosulek will step down: the IACR is looking for a new candidate. Thanks to Kevin McCurley the redesign of the IACR website is ongoing with a much more mobile friendly look and feel. The President outlines the recent work of the Board. This includes the affiliated events which are now an integral part of General Conferences: Asiacrypt, Crypto, and Eurocrypt. There is a worry about the growing difficulties with visas and problems with international exchange. Leo Ducas asks what countries are difficult. The President explains that this includes the USA and China but also other countries are affected. Tanja Lange reminds that the IACR can choose where to organize their conferences. The President agrees and reminds that often a conscious choice is made such as Eurocrypt 2018 in Israel. Nigel Smart reminds the members that this not only affects members going to the USA but also students who are in the USA and want to attend other conferences. The Presidents asks if we should rethink the schedule for the General Conferences. Traditionally the conferences run from Sunday evening to Thursday lunch-time with possibly a free afternoon. Currently, the affiliated events are hosted mainly before the main event in the weekend. What about running the main conference from Tuesday to Thursday for 3 full days such that we have one day before and after for affiliated events? Peter Schwabe asks how this alternative can accommodate 2-day affiliated workshops. The President thinks these 2-day events are an exception. Orr Dunkelman notes that the alternative model is not compatible with the co-location of CHES and Crypto. The President agrees and the events could be run in parallel. Martijn Stam asks if all events need to follow the same organizational pattern. The President notes that new events seem to prefer to use the days before the conference. Martijn Stam asks about the hybrid model: both CHES and FSE have switched, are other venues following this example? The President replies that TCC is least likely to follow. He is not aware of the opinion of the Steering Committee of PKC. The President's own opinion is that the three flagship Conferences need to be tied together somehow. Vincent Rijmen remarks that the reviewer's identities are hidden from the authors but not from the other reviewers: should we change anything? The President explains this is how the IACR operates. We do disclose the PC members identities. Nigel Smart recalls that there were a number of Asiacrypt conferences where the reviewers were unknown to other reviewers: this was a disaster. Smart strongly discourages to do this and suggests to make the reviews public like in some other conferences. The Presidents asks if these reviews are published anonymous. Smart states that for some this is the case and he would prefer this. A Member asks if also the reviews of rejected papers get published. The President states this will most likely not be the case. However, authors can always publish the review they have received. Leo Ducas asks about the rule of two submissions per PC members. Can we increase this to three submissions? The President states that he received mixed messages and leaves this up to the Program Chairs. Smart suggests to have (when relevant) the implementations and datasets as part of the submission. The President states that this is mainly relevant for CHES and agrees that a dataset repository for the IACR is a good suggestion. Bart Preneel remarks that to reduce the review load the hybrid model can reduce peak load. Hence, this might be a good choice for all conferences. There follows an informal show of hands among the Members who is in favor of changing to the hybrid model for all conferences. There are two against and between 30 to 40 in favor. Roberto Avanzi remarks that when the General Conferences use this hybrid model it also might solve the visa problems. The meeting was closed at 17h55.