International Association
for Cryptologic Research

Registration for CRYPTO 2015 is now open (https://www.iacr.org/conferences/crypto2015/registration.html), which makes it a good time to let you know about a few important updates.

Paper delivery of the Journal of Cryptology is now *opt-in*. If you would like to receive hard-copy JoC editions, you must update your membership info. You can update proactively via the membership info form (https://secure.iacr.org/membership/members/update.html) or when paying your membership dues for 2016 during conference registration. If you have already paid your membership dues for 2016 you can still opt in and pay at a later time.

We have made some changes in how IACR membership records are stored internally. As a result, there is a small chance you will be asked to reset your password when authenticating. You will need access to the email address of record associated with your membership. If you experience problems, please contact the membership secretary at database@iacr.org.

Open Letter to the Hon'ble President of India

The International Association of Cryptologic Research (IACR) is dismayed by reports of Professor Bimal Roy being dismissed in all but name as Director of the Indian Statistical Institute in Kolkata. Professor Roy has been a driving force in advancing the important field of cryptology in India, elevating its visibility to international level. Cryptology is a prime application of statistical and probabilistic methods.

The IACR confirms that Professor Roy deserves great recognition for his service to India and to the field of cryptology. He devoted his career to strengthening India's standing in this timely, fast advancing field. Removing him from this position one month before the appointment expires is an act that has put India in a shameful and awkward position in front of the international community of cryptology research and of mathematics in general.

The International Association of Cryptologic Research
June 21, 2015

Videos from FSE 2013 are now online.

The IACR has recently started sponsoring select Cryptology Schools. If you would like to propose an IACR-sponsored school that takes place on/before February 2016, then your last chance to submit proposals is June 30. The next round of proposals is not until December 31. More information about the application process can be found at http://www.iacr.org/schools/.

Dear IACR Member,

We are conducting a study on the verifiability aspects of e-voting and specifically the verifiability features of Helios, the system used in IACR elections. It will only take a couple of seconds to complete the survey.

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/3C7YCGL

The results and analysis of the survey will be made available to the community. The study is conducted by the U. of Athens Crypto.Sec group http://crypto.di.uoa.gr No personal information of any form is collected in this study.

IACR webmaster

The IACR has selected 6 new members to be recognized as Fellows of the IACR. The 2015 Fellows are (in alphabetical order):

• Ernie Brickell, for founding the Journal of Cryptology, for industrial implementations supporting privacy, and for contributions to secret sharing, attestation, and the cryptanalysis of knapsack-based cryptosystems.
• Joe Kilian, for ingenious contributions to areas including primality testing, secure computation, oblivious transfer, interactive proofs, zero knowledge, and watermarking.
• Kaisa Nyberg, for fundamental contributions to the design and analysis of block ciphers, for contributions to mobile phone security, and for service to the IACR.
• Tatsuaki Okamoto, for theoretical and practical contributions to areas including encryption, signatures, identification, elliptic-curve cryptosystems, zero knowledge, and electronic cash, and for service to the IACR.
• Bart Preneel, for outstanding service to the IACR, for numerous research contributions, for sustained educational leadership, and for effectively leading the European cryptologic research community.
• Tal Rabin, for contributions to the theory of multiparty computation, encryption, and signatures, and for leadership on cryptographic research within industry.

In 2004, the IACR established the IACR Fellows Program to recognize outstanding IACR members for technical and professional contributions that:

• Advance the science, technology, and practice of cryptology and related fields;
• Promote the free exchange of ideas and information about cryptology and related fields;
• Develop and maintain the professional skill and integrity of individuals in the cryptologic community;
• Advance the standing of the cryptologic community in the wider scientific and technical world and promote fruitful relationships between the IACR and other scientific and technical organizations.

In general, two broad categories of accomplishment will be considered: technical contributions and distinguished service to the cryptologic community. Fellows are expected to be "model citizens" of the cryptologic community, and thus most of them will have demonstrated sustained and significant accomplishment in both categories, but a very small number may be chosen for unique and crucial accomplishment in one category only.

More information about the Fellows program, including the list of all Fellows, can be found at http://iacr.org/fellows/.

Starting this year, the IACR is introducing an annual TCC Test-of-Time (ToT) award. The award recognizes outstanding papers, published in TCC at least eight years ago, making a significant contribution to the theory of cryptography, preferably with influence also in other area of cryptography, theory, and beyond. The inaugural 2015 TCC ToT award was announced this week at the TCC business meeting in Warsaw. The winners are Silvio Micali and Leonid Reyzin, for their paper "Physically Observable Cryptography" from TCC 2004. The award committee recognized Micali and Reyzin "for pioneering a mathematical foundation of cryptography in the presence of information leakage in physical systems."

For more information about the new Test-of-Time award, including information on nominating a paper, please see the page at http://www.iacr.org/workshops/tcc/awards.html.

Dear members of the IACR

With the spring conference season in full swing, you have certainly noticed a few changes in IACR's workshops and conferences.

Online proceedings

The online proceedings of TCC 2015 and PKC 2015 are now available to members via the IACR online library at http://www.iacr.org/services/springer.php

Based on IACR's arrangement with Springer, we install access for members to conference proceedings as soon as these are available, which is usually a few weeks before the event. We also implement online access to everyone during the time of the conference and this is valid for a few weeks afterwards. Technically, this uses "referer" authorization, where the general chair includes a link to the online proceedings in the conference website.

In that context, recall that all IACR proceedings four years and older are available as "Gold Open Access" (that is, openly from the publisher's online library), and the younger ones are "Green Open Access."

Submission format:

Compared to when IACR started to publish conference proceedings, authors are nowadays formatting the "final" versions of papers almost by themselves; based on common tools and style files, the result also looks much more uniform than 30 years ago. Discussions among authors, program chairs, the Board of Directors, and conference reviewers during 2014 have now resulted in a change to the "traditional" submission format of N pages, 11pt font, and A4/letter size. For EUROCRYPT and CRYPTO in 2015, the LNCS style of the final version has been preferred or even declared mandatory. As could be expected, this change has created some confusion, but we trust that this was just a transition effect.

The Board, as the representative of all IACR members, acknowledges that there should be continuity across IACR publications. A corresponding policy is being worked out right now and should be adopted uniformly by the community. The main reason to format submissions in the same way as the final accepted version is to make transparent to readers, as well as to reviewers, that the published version and the reviewed version correspond to each other in length and scope. However, no bound on "supplementary material" is foreseen and authors are still strongly encouraged to revise and improve their submissions based on the feedback received.

Parallel sessions:

As explained in my news update from September last year, the Board has asked EUROCRYPT, CRYPTO, and ASIACRYPT to organize parallel sessions for a significant part of the program. EUROCRYPT in Sofia will be the first IACR conference with parallel sessions, and I invite you to check out the program on the website. At the end of this year, we will hold a referendum among the IACR membership for deciding whether the format should be kept like this.

Cryptology Schools:

The Board has approved funding for the following IACR Cryptology Schools:

1. SAC Summer School (S3). August 10--12, 2015, Sackville, New Brunswick, Canada. Contact: Orr Dunkelman and Liam Keliher
2. School on Computer-Aided Cryptography: sometime between May 20th and July 10th, 2015, University of Maryland. Contact: Benedikt Schmidt

See the website http://www.iacr.org/schools/ for more information and other upcoming schools.

Closing:

Before I close, let me congratulate Craig Gentry for receiving a MacArthur "genius grant" last year, the first member of our community to receive this prestigious award.

The TCC annual Test of Time (ToT) award was presented for the first time during TCC 2015 this week. This award is given to TCC papers of yore that withstood the test of time. The winners were Silvio Micali and Leonid Reyzin, for their paper "Physically Observable Cryptography" from TCC 2004, receiving the award "for pioneering a mathematical foundation of cryptography in the presence of information leakage in physical systems."

Moreover, TCC has decided to shift its date to fall, and the conference will move there in steps, with TCC 2016 being in January. The Board has recently approved the proposal to hold TCC 2016 in January 2016 in Tel Aviv, Israel.

Best regards,

Christian Cachin, IACR President

In 2014, IACR started to sponsor a small number of Cryptology Schools providing intensive training on clearly identified topics in cryptology. The aim of this program is to develop awareness and increased capacity for research in cryptology.

A Cryptology School is typically held full-time for 4-5 days of intensive learning and constitutes an efficient way to provide high-quality training for graduate students, as well as for professionals. Attendance should be open to anyone who is interested and qualified. In order to facilitate learning, a school is usually taught by a few domain experts with a focus on educating the audience rather than impressing with results. In line with the mission of IACR, a Cryptology School should enable the audience to advance the theory and practice of cryptology and related fields.

There are two rounds of submissions every year. The submission deadlines are:

• December 31st of year X-1: For schools that take place between March of year X and February of year X + 1.
• June 30th of year X: For schools that take place between September of year X and August of year X + 1.

Submissions must be sent by email to schools@iacr.org.

For more information about this new program and how to prepare a proposal, please refer to http://www.iacr.org/schools/

The video of Mihir Bellare's IACR distinguished lecture at Crypto is now online.

In response to recent discoveries of protocol vulnerabilities and in sync with major browser producers, the IACR web server no longer supports SSLv2 and SSLv3. If you face difficulties accessing the IACR services over an encrypted connection, please contact webmaster(at)iacr.org.

The proceedings of CHES 2014 are now available online. IACR members can access them from http://www.iacr.org/proceedings/ with their IACR login.

Here is a brief update on IACR matters as of CRYPTO 2014.

\r\n\r\n\r\n

***Communications and website

\r\n\r\n

First of all, I would like to thank Christopher Wolf for his service\r\nand dedication to the IACR in his role as Newsletter Editor (later,\r\nCommunications Secretary). From 2009 until this summer, he has led\r\nthe communications and publicity activities of the IACR and made the\r\nwebsite an interesting and interactive experience.

\r\n\r\n

The Board of Directors has appointed Mike Rosulek (Oregon State\r\nUniversity, US) as the Communications Secretary; Yu Yu (Shanghai Jiao\r\nTong University, CN) also joins the communications team and serves as\r\none of the webmasters.

\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

***Cryptography Research Fund for Students

\r\n\r\n

Thanks to the generous donation of 1 Mio. USD from Cryptography\r\nResearch Inc. (a division of Rambus) the IACR has created the\r\n*Cryptography Research Fund for Students.*

\r\n\r\n

The fund aims at promoting cryptology to students and supporting\r\nscholarly work in the field. With its help, the IACR can greatly\r\nincrease its support for students in cryptology through:

\r\n\r\n

1) Waiving the registration fee for student speakers at EUROCRYPT,\r\n CRYPTO, ASIACRYPT and, now, also at CHES, FSE, TCC and PKC;

\r\n\r\n

2) Expanding its support for Cryptology Schools (see below);

\r\n\r\n

3) Further activities, as coordinated by an Endowment Committee that\r\n oversees the fund. (Please contact its chair, Greg Rose, with more\r\n ideas.)

\r\n\r\n

The IACR has created an investment fund with a conservative strategy\r\nso that this program can be funded in perpetuity. Combined with a\r\nsmaller commitment from the IACR, the sum in the fund can support the\r\nongoing activities detailed above as well as let the capital keep\r\nup with inflation.

\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

***Parallel sessions

\r\n\r\n

In response to the growth of the field over the last years, the Board\r\nin 2011 sent a message to Program Chairs and Program Committees of the\r\nthree main conferences asking them \"to accept substantially more\r\npapers than used to be the case and to work with their General Chair\r\nfor the logistics to make this possible.\" As one can see from the\r\npublication statistics over the recent years\r\n(http://www.iacr.org/publications/statistics.html) the message has\r\nbeen received partially, but not uniformly implemented. As of today,\r\nthe Board believes that this effort should go further. During the\r\nrecent meeting at CRYPTO, a majority of the Board expressed the opinion\r\nthat a program of, say, 60 or more talks should be arranged at least\r\npartially in parallel sessions.

\r\n\r\n

Hence, during its meeting at CRYPTO, the Board has decided to ask the\r\nProgram Chairs and Committees of the three IACR conferences in 2015\r\n\"to have parallel sessions for a significant part of the program.\" It\r\nis intended for 2015 only. At a discussion during the membership\r\nmeeting, a vote indicated a clear majority in favor of this change for\r\n2015, but there was also a significant minority against. After\r\nASIACRYPT 2015 a referendum among the IACR membership will be held for\r\ndeciding whether the format should be kept like this.

\r\n\r\n

Per IACR\'s policy, Program Chairs and Committees are responsible for\r\nthe scientific program; the General Chairs are responsible for the\r\nlogistics and the organization. The Board guides these processes and\r\nensures continuity across IACR\'s activities.

\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

***Cryptology Schools

\r\n\r\n

The Board has approved funding for the first three IACR Cryptology\r\nSchools, which take place later this year and next year.

\r\n\r\n

1) School on Cryptographic Attacks (http://attackschool.di.uminho.pt/)\r\n 13-17 October 2014, Porto, Portugal

\r\n\r\n

2) School on Design and Security of Cryptographic Algorithms and Devices,\r\n 5-10 July 2015 (tentative), location to be decided.

\r\n\r\n

3) Asian Workshop on Symmetric Key Cryptography - Cryptology School,\r\n 19-22 December 2014, Chennai, India (http://ask2014.iiitd.ac.in/)

\r\n\r\n

See the website http://www.iacr.org/schools/ for more information.

\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

***Elections

\r\n\r\n

There will be elections for three IACR Director positions later this\r\nyear; nominations are now open and due by October 10, 2014. Please\r\nconsider running and see the announcement on the website:\r\n http://www.iacr.org/elections/2014/

\r\n\r\n\r\n

Regards,

\r\n\r\n Christian Cachin\r\n IACR President\r\n

Starting in 2014, IACR will sponsor a small number of Cryptology Schools providing intensive training on clearly identified topics in cryptology. The aim of this program is to develop awareness and increased capacity for research in cryptology.

A Cryptology School is typically held full-time for 4-5 days of intensive learning and constitutes an efficient way to provide high-quality training for graduate students, as well as for professionals. Attendance should be open to anyone who is interested and qualified. In order to facilitate learning, a school is usually taught by a few domain experts with a focus on educating the audience rather than impressing with results. In line with the mission of IACR, a Cryptology School should enable the audience to advance the theory and practice of cryptology and related fields.

There are two rounds of submissions every year. The submission deadlines are:

• December 31st of year X-1: For schools that take place between March of year X and February of year X + 1.
• June 30th of year X: For schools that take place between September of year X and August of year X + 1.

Submissions must be sent by email to schools /at/ iacr.org.

For more information about this new program and how to prepare a proposal, please refer to http://www.iacr.org/schools/

The following reviews shall help the IACR members and the community to buy books in cryptology and related areas. The full list of reviews / books is available at www.iacr.org/books

If you have any questions regarding the IACR book reviewing system, or would like to volunteer a review, please contact Edoardo Persichetti (University of Warsaw, Poland) via /books at iacr.org/.

New reviews in 2014:

• R. Lidl, H. Niederreiter: Finite Fields (2nd Edition)
  "This volume gives a comprehensive coverage of the theory of finite fields and its most important applications such as combinatorics and coding theory. Its simple and reader-friendly style, and the inclusion of many worked examples and exercises make it suitable not only as a reference volume for the topic, but also as a textbook for a dedicated course. I highly recommend the book to any person interested in the theory of finite fields and its applications."
  Year: 2008
  ISBN: 978-0-521-06567-2
  Review by Edoardo Persichetti (Warsaw University, Warsaw, Poland). (Date: 2014-01-30)
• A. McAndrew: Introduction to Cryptography with Open-Source Software
  "This very well written book is recommended to graduate or final year undergraduate students intended to start research work on both theoretical and experimental cryptography. Most of the cryptographic protocols are illustrated by various examples and implemented using the open-source algebra software Sage. The book provides a rigorous introduction to the mathematics used in cryptographic and covers almost all modern practical cryptosystems. Also, the book is certainly a valuable resource for practitioners looking for experimental cryptography with a computer algebra system."
  Year: 2011
  ISBN: 978-1-4398-2570-9
  Review by Abderrahmane Nitaj (LMNO, Université de Caen Basse Normandie, France). (Date: 2014-02-13)
• B. Martin: Codage, Cryptologie et Applications [French]
  "This French book succinctly describes the mathematical principles of cryptography and error correcting codes. Once these principles are introduced, the book presents their use in some telecommunication applications (at the state of the art in 2004). The book does not define its target audience. It is probably not enough detailed for a skilled audience, nor particularly suitable for beginners and students, since it requires mathematical background that they would have to find elsewhere."
  Year: 2006
  ISBN: 2-88074-569-1
  Review by Eric Diehl (Technicolor, Paris, France). (Date: 2014-02-12)
• T. Baignères, P. Junod, Y. Lu, J. Monnerat, S. Vaudenay: A Classical Introduction To Cryptography Exercise Book
  "The book's main goal is to show how some mathematical notions of calculus, algebra, and computer science are used to study the security of various cryptosystems. The volume is a collection of exercises, including hints and solutions, and is suitable for advanced undergraduate and graduate students as well as students in computer science and engineering and practitioners who want to understand the mathematical techniques behind cryptography."
  Year: 2006
  ISBN: 978-0-387-27934-3
  Review by Abdelhak Azhari (Hassan II University, Casablanca, Morocco). (Date: 2014-02-12)
• J. Buchmann, U. Vollmer: Binary Quadratic Forms
  "The theory of binary quadratic forms is important in algebraic number theory. This book offers a good introduction to binary quadratic forms by following an algorithmic approach. It will be useful for students and teachers interested in binary quadratic forms and their cryptographic applications."
  Year: 2007
  ISBN: 978-3-540-46367-2
  Review by S.V. Nagaraj (RMK Engineering College, Kavaraipettai, Tamil Nadu, India). (Date: 2014-05-19)
• J. Hoffstein, J. Pipher, J. Silverman: An Introduction to Mathematical Cryptography
  "This volume provides an excellent introduction to the mathematics of cryptography. Its simple style make it accessible even to readers without a consistent mathematical background. I highly recommend this book to anyone, in particular non-specialists that are interested in the topic, and students that want to approach cryptography from a mathematical point of view. It is also very useful for instructors in the same context - I personally found it an an invaluable tool for preparing my graduate cryptography course."
  Year: 2008
  ISBN: 978-0-387-77993-5
  Review by Edoardo Persichetti (University of Warsaw, Poland). (Date: 2014-03-27)

The IACR Fellows 2014 have been announced:

• Ran Canetti
• Antoine Joux
• Eyal Kushilevitz
• Moti Yung

Statement of Principle from the IACR Membership on Mass Surveillance and the Subversion of Cryptography

The membership of the IACR repudiates mass surveillance and the undermining of cryptographic solutions and standards. Population-wide surveillance threatens democracy and human dignity. We call for expediting research and deployment of effective techniques to protect personal privacy against governmental and corporate overreach.

The IACR Board of Directors is searching for volunteers to help with the website, the Cryptology ePrint Archive, and other IACR online services. Maintenance and future expansion of the online services of the IACR are crucial part for the interaction among cryptographers. We are interested in motivated cryptographers who would like to exploit their systems skills in a LAMP environment.

If you are interested in serving the community in this way, please contact the President of the IACR at president@iacr.org.

Scott Vanstone (1947-2014)

It is a great honor for me to have been elected as the President of the IACR and a challenge at the same time. Today cryptography is a vibrant research field that offers important and exciting questions to work on. It has not lost any of its fascination to me over the last 20 years since I entered the field as a graduate student -- quite to the contrary. In the age of cloud computing, cryptology continues to be a key technology for securing the digital world. Starting with the Snowden revelations in 2013, cryptography has also regained a level of political visibility that reminds me of the debates that were taking place in the 1990's. This gives us, as cryptologists and members of the IACR, an exposure that is hard to match.

In 2013 cryptology demonstrated (again) the power of its contributions to society, science, and technology by Shafi Goldwasser and Silvio Micali winning the ACM Turing Award, the highest distinction in computer science. As the ACM Turing Award page shows very visibly (http://amturing.acm.org/bysubject.cfm), cryptology is one of the most promising research topics for winning the Turing Award. Congratulations, Shafi and Silvio!

The IACR's events were well-attended and well-organized in 2013. The first two of our 2014 events, TCC in San Diego and FSE in London, are already over with about 120 and about 160 attendees, respectively. For the upcoming Eurocrypt in Copenhagen, everyone is advised to book early. Due to Eurovision Song Contest 2014 in the week just before Eurocrypt, hotels may be difficult to find or expensive.

The composition of the Board of Directors has changed for 2014. New members of the Board are: Ivan Damgaard, as new JoC Editor-in-Chief; Steven Galbraith, Asiacrypt 2015 General Chair; Svetla Petkova-Nikova, Eurocrypt 2015 General Chair; and Thomas Ristenpart, Crypto 2015 General Chair. Matt Franklin will stay on the Board in 2014 for easing the transition of the Journal to Ivan Damgaard.

IACR exists only through the work of volunteers, who bring our conferences, events, online systems, and publications to life. I'd like to thank everyone for contributing their time to IACR. It is hard work but important for our organization. At the same time, I am looking forward to hearing about your future plans and ideas for how you would like to help and to improve IACR.

Very concretely, the European members of the Board of Directors are currently looking for a proposal to host Eurocrypt 2016. If you are inclined and would like to know more about exposing your skills as a conference organizer, please step forward and contact Michel Abdalla or any other member of the Board.

For 2014 and beyond, the IACR will have to address the challenges to scientific publishing posed by two factors, by the Internet and by the growing field. The IACR has a long tradition of operating with a liberal, author-friendly attitude to copyright. This has made it possible, among other things, that all IACR publications starting from 1982 are now openly available over the Internet via the IACR website; only the last two years are restricted to IACR members. Second, the growth in our field has boosted the number of paper submissions and conference attendees, but also led to record low acceptance rates and excessive reviewing load. We will resume the open discussion on the future of IACR's publications, in order to address these challenges.

With my new role as President, I have to cut back on other ends. I am glad that Nigel Smart has taken over my job as co-editor of the Cryptology ePrint Archive, or "eprint" as called by most. He shares this workload with Tal Rabin. Almost 15 years ago, when I had created the online system that still runs today, it had not occurred to me that the eprint archive would ever play such a useful role for research in cryptology.

Shortly before writing this, the sad news reached us that Scott Vanstone has passed away on March 2nd. He was a giant in the field, and the IACR will honor his contributions separately. Let me only mention that he was a past Director of the IACR and had helped to grow the organization, and he became an IACR Fellow in 2011.

I look forward to interacting with you in 2014.

Christian Cachin
IACR President

This letter had stated erroneously that Scott Vanstone was past President of the IACR; in fact, he was a member of the Board of Directors.