International Association
for Cryptologic Research

During CRYPTO’22 in Santa Barbara, a Women in Cryptography Networking Reception was successfully held. The attendees discussed several gender-related points they would like to be addressed by the IACR community. A resume (in bullet form) can be found here (https://hackmd.io/@RUWdi86MSmCiqoMLxEzsKQ/S11cD-U1i).

As a result of this, a discord “Women in Cryptography” and a website (https://www.womenincryptography.com/) have been created.

We invite all people who identify as women to join the discord and the ongoing discussions there. To join, please send email with the subject line “Request to join WIC discord” to contact@womenincryptography.com

NIST has published NISTIR 8214C ipd: NIST First Call for Multi-Party Threshold Schemes (Initial Public Draft). The call has two categories: cat1, for NIST-specified primitives; and cat2, for primitives not specified by NIST.

The period of public comments is open till April 10, 2023. The participation of the cryptology community is essential for the success of this initiative.

Details here: https://csrc.nist.gov/publications/detail/nistir/8214c/draft

Consider also joining the MPTC forum: https://csrc.nist.gov/projects/threshold-cryptography/email-list

IACR Statement Condemning the Russian war in Ukraine
April 6, 2022

Statement from the International Association for Cryptologic Research (IACR) Condemning the Russian war in Ukraine

The IACR strongly condemns the unprovoked and unjust war that Russia is waging in Ukraine. We are outraged by the suffering and loss of life that this brutal aggression is inflicting on the Ukrainian People.

While this war continues, the IACR will not hold or plan to hold any conference in Russia, nor will it be affiliated with conferences in Russia.

The IACR fully endorses the following joint statement by the National Academies of G7 States which was published on 2 March 2022:

"The unprovoked attack against Ukraine, a democratic and independent country, is a blatant violation of international law and of core values of humanity. The Russian invasion is an assault on the fundamental principles of freedom, democracy and self-determination, which provide the basis for academic freedom and opportunities for scientific exchange and cooperation.

In this dark hour, our thoughts and deepest sympathy are with the people of Ukraine. We are determined to support the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine. We stand in solidarity with the scientific community and the scientists in Ukraine.

We acknowledge the Russian scientists and citizens who are ashamed of this attack and speak out against the war.

We call on the Russian leadership to immediately cease all military action against Ukraine and put an end to this war."

Approved by the IACR board of directors, April 6, 2022

Algorand Foundation invites proposals for the Algorand Centres of Excellence (ACE) programme to build and run multidisciplinary centers which advance research and support applied education in the blockchain and cryptocurrency space.

Proposals for three to five years are accepted from higher education institutions and non-profit research organizations anywhere in the world. The ACE programme is being launched with a budget of 100,000,000 ALGO for the next ten years.

See the ACE website for further details.

The NIST Multi-Party Threshold Cryptography project has an open call (2021a), till September 13, 2021, for feedback on selected topics of criteria for multi-party threshold schemes.

Details here: https://csrc.nist.gov/projects/threshold-cryptography

Consider also joining the TC forum: https://csrc.nist.gov/projects/threshold-cryptography/email-list

Dear Cryptographers,

Here you can find a compilation of mentoring videos with Q&A's on such questions as:

• How to prepare a good talk?
• Was there a time when you doubted yourself?
• How do you find a research topic?
• And many many more questions, all answered by people who have been through it before you, there will be many familiar faces.

The organizers:

• Peihan Miao
• Tal Rabin
• Xiao Wang

The Covid Pandemic has taken a toll on one of our young cryptographers and cybersecurity specialist Dr Nishant Sinha on 9th May, 2021. He was a thorough gentleman for whom no challenge was difficult.

Nishant was born on 22 Feb 1985. He completed his Bachelor's in 2009 from Biju Patnaik University of Technology, Odisha, in Computer Science and Engineering. He next post-graduated from the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing in 2012. He had a brief stint as an Assistant professor from April 2012 to Dec 2014. In the year 2015, he joined Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee for Ph. D., which he completed by the year 2018. During this time he was collaborating with Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata too. His area of research was Cryptanalysis on Symmetric Ciphers. After the PhD he joined Robert Bosch Engineering and Business Solutions at Bangalore, where he surprised everybody by a remarkable transformation from a Cryptology Researcher to a Security Practitioner. We remember working with Nishant both in Academia and Industry. A link to his publication is at https://dblp.org/pid/07/201-3.html .

Nishant is missed by each of his colleagues. During the cryptology conferences and workshops in India, participants from all over the world were greeted by Nishant with his big and bright smile. That is why we think Nishant should be remembered at the IACR webpage. Our heart reaches out to his family - his mother, sister, wife and little baby daughter. We pray God almighty gives them the strength to overcome these difficult times. In the short span Nishant made his brilliance known to all of us. No doubt he leaves a void that we will never be able to fill. Yet we shall be guided and inspired by him especially his simplicity and ability to handle complicated things. May our friend find peace.

Sugata (IIT Roorkee), Shashwat (Bosch), Subhamoy (ISI Kolkata)

The PKC conference will be held as a virtual event this year, starting on Monday, May 10. There will be brief presentations on 53 papers, two invited talks, and social events. The program is online at https://pkc.iacr.org/2021/program.php

Within the scope of the NIST Privacy-Enhancing Cryptography (PEC) project, the preliminary draft "Toward a PEC use-case suite" is open for public comments. See https://csrc.nist.gov/Projects/pec/suite for the document, contact info and suggested feedback template.

Feedback by March 2021 is most welcome. Subsequent feedback will also be appreciated. It is expected that a followup draft version will later be posted for a new period of public comments.

Thanks to everyone for confirming the importance of the Cryptology ePrint Archive by alerting us that it was not reachable.

The problem has now been fixed

--The eprint editors & maintainers

The registration for Asiacrypt 2020 (virtual) is now open: https://asiacrypt.iacr.org/2020/

The IACR board has decided that virtual Asiacrypt 2020 will be free, but attendees are required to pay the IACR membership fee for 2021 if they have not already paid it (typically by attending an IACR conference in 2020).

The conference program is available here: https://asiacrypt.iacr.org/2020/program.php

PKC 2020 has been converted to a virtual conference this year, to be held June 1-4. The program is now live and registration is open. Chat will go live on Saturday, May 20. The only fees being collected are for the IACR membership, so if you already attended RWC or Eurocrypt this year, then you can register for free.

The website for Eurocrypt 2020 has been revised with information about the upcoming virtual conference on May 11-15. Registration is now open, and further details will appear in the days to come.

This will be the first virtual conference by IACR, and the only cost for attendees will be the IACR membership fee if you haven't already paid it yet this year.

Dear IACR member,

Recent developments related to the outbreak of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) and the increasing number of travel restrictions that have been put in place have forced us to make the following decisions regarding the schedule of forthcoming IACR conferences:

• FSE 2020, which was supposed to be held in Athens, Greece, during 22-26 March 2020, has been postponed to 8-12 November 2020;
• PKC 2020, which was supposed to be held in Edinburgh, Scotland, during 4-7 May 2020, has been postponed; and
• EUROCRYPT 2020, which was supposed to be held in Zagreb, Croatia, during 10-14 May 2020, has been postponed.

We are currently considering several rescheduling options for EUROCRYPT 2020 and PKC 2020 and we will be informing the membership and attendees about these changes as soon as possible via the IACR news system and other appropriate communication channels.

The publication schedule of these conferences has not been altered and authors will have the option to record a presentation that would go online on the website of these conferences. Registered attendees have been offered either a full refund or the option to transfer the registration fee to the postponed version.

No changes have been made at this time to the schedule of CRYPTO 2020, CHES 2020, TCC 2020, and ASIACRYPT 2020, but we will continue to closely monitor the situation and will inform members if changes are needed.

Dear IACR member,

The IACR board is currently monitoring the outbreak of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) and assessing its potential impact on forthcoming IACR conferences. Although the current conference schedule has not changed, we are in close contact with the conference organizers and constantly reevaluating the situation. In case a conference needs to be postponed, relocated, cancelled, or switched to a web-only format, we will be informing the membership and attendees as soon as possible via the IACR news system and other appropriate communication channels. Publication schedules will not be altered significantly even if conferences are affected.

In the meantime, we are in the process of implementing several measures to ease the burden on attendees who cannot physically attend the conference due to travel restrictions or concerns related to the novel coronavirus outbreak. These include:

• having a more flexible cancellation and refund policy; and
• allowing alternative methods of presentation, such as pre-recorded videos.

In order to guarantee the safety of conference attendees, we are also asking our conference organizers to follow the safety guidelines of the World Health Organization (WHO) and national health protection agencies such as the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and to ensure attendees are aware of these guidelines. In addition, we also plan to have a point of contact for each conference to address concerns by attendees.

Links:
WHO: https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019
CDC: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/index.html
IACR News: https://www.iacr.org/news/

Peter L. Montgomery

Registration is now open for Selected Areas in Cryptography (SAC) 2019, which is held in cooperation with the IACR. SAC 2019 will be held August 14-16, 2019, at the University of Waterloo near Toronto, Canada, preceded by the SAC Summer School August 12-13. Invited speakers include Craig Costello, Tetsu Iwata, Seny Kamara, Nele Mentens, and Doug Stinson.

The program will include sessions on design and analysis of symmetric key primitives, efficient implementations, mathematical cryptology, real-world cryptography, and post-quantum crypto. Details and program at https://uwaterloo.ca/sac-2019.

Some stipends available to help support attendance of students and early career researchers.

Dear IACR members,

In-between a memorable Eurocrypt in Darmstadt and an exciting Crypto coming up in August, let me share some recent developments in the IACR.

Cryptology ePrint Archive

After four years of serving as one of two editors, Alexandra Boldyreva has stepped down. Approving the eprints according to minimal acceptance criteria is an important task that benefits everyone in the field. Speaking for IACR, I thank her for all the work with this and wish her a well-deserved break from the flood of submissions.

The Board has appointed Joppe Bos to new co-editor; he shares this position with Tancrède Lepoint.

Communications Secretary

A second change has taken place with the responsible for communications: Mike Rosulek has driven publicity for IACR during the last five years. On behalf of the organization, I thank him for all his efforts, his diligence, and many late-night shifts.

The Board has appointed Foteini Baldimtsi as new Communications Secretary; she oversees a growing team of multiple people who operate the online and communication services. Welcome to the Board!

Eurocrypt 2021 in Norway and Asiacrypt 2021 in Singapore

Eurocrypt will return to Norway in 2021 (after 1993 in Lofthus) and take place Trondheim, with Colin Boyd serving as General Chair. For Asiacrypt 2021 the IACR has selected a proposal from Singapore, organized by Guo Jian of the Nanyang Technological University.

We thank them and all other conference organizers for creating the leading conferences in the field. It is a multi-year effort to organize an event attended by several hundred people and means a great investment of time and energy. But organizing an event also provides the rewarding opportunity to leave lasting memories with all attendees. Bringing together everyone, including newcomers, students, senior researchers and everyone else with a common interest in cryptologic research, is an important aspect that goes beyond the scientific progress. In this sense I invite everyone who is in a position to do so, to think about contributing to IACR and potentially organize a future event -- just approach any Board member with your ideas.

The Board has discussed many further topics at the recent Eurocrypt meeting and also earlier at virtual meetings; you can find the meeting minutes online at https://www.iacr.org/docs/minutes/

Website renewal

A few days ago the web team has upgraded the IACR website with a completely new, responsive design. I invite you to check it out at https://iacr.org/. The new implementation renders the content nicely on any platform, from mobile phone to tablet and desktop.

On behalf of the IACR, I sincerely thank Kevin McCurley for the tremendous effort he has put into the upgrade. As a former IACR treasurer, president, and creator of the initial website, his contributions and dedication are exemplary!

I am looking forward to seeing many of you at CRYPTO in Santa Barbara! Please note that the early-registration deadline is on July 19th.

Christian Cachin
IACR President

After a long development cycle, the iacr.org website has been updated with a style that is better suited for use on both desktop and phones. Some outdated features were phased out, while others still require further development. We welcome feedback or suggestions for new features via email to webfeedback at iacr.org.

Dear members of the IACR

The year 2018 saw considerable growth for IACR: The first RWC sponsored by IACR took place in Zurich, attended by 600 people; the largest Crypto ever with 641 attendees, was held at UCSB in August; and the IACR counts a record number of more than 2100 members for the year 2019.

On behalf of everyone in the field, I'd like to thank the organizers of conferences, workshops, schools, and all further activities of the IACR, as well as the Board members and everyone else working behind the scene, for their efforts in making this possible.

As we move into 2019, let me mention some new developments.

Test-of-time award for the General Conferences

A new Test-of-time Award has been established recently and will start in 2019. It is given out yearly for each one of the three IACR General Conferences: Eurocrypt, Crypto, and Asiacrypt. The award honors "a paper with a lasting impact on the field" and will be given at the conference in year X to a paper published at the same conference in year X - 15.

The awards are selected by a yearly committee with five members, of which two members are appointed by Board and three are program chairs for the respective conferences in year X. This year's committee is chaired by Dan Boneh. Please see the details at https://iacr.org/testoftime/

Silvio Micali to hold the IACR Distinguished Lecture 2020

At its meeting in August, the Board has invited Silvio Micali to the hold the 2020 IACR Distinguished Lecture. This lecture is held annually and rotates between the three IACR General Conferences. We look forward to Silvio Micali's lecture at Crypto 2020!

For more information about the IACR Distinguished Lecture, see the website at https://iacr.org/publications/dl/

Board members

The IACR 2018 election was held in October/November to fill three of nine IACR Director positions. Congratulations to Michel Abdalla, Nadia Heninger, and Anna Lysyanskaya for being elected as directors! Michel and Anna were re-elected to their director positions and Nadia joins as a new director.

Among the incumbents of director positions, Phil Rogaway did not run for election and leaves the Board. Likewise the General Chairs of the 2019 General Conferences leave the Board and will again have more time to enjoy a conference as a guest: Orr Dunkelman, Tal Rabin, and Josef Pieprzyk. Let me thank all of them for their memorable contributions to the IACR!

Furthermore, Mitsuru Matsui has been elected as the chair of the Asiacrypt Steering Committee; this committee selects the venues for Asiacrypt as set forth in IACR's operational procedures (https://iacr.org/docs/steering.pdf). Thanks to Xuejia Lai for his work in this role until 2018.

Next IACR events

• Real World Crypto Symposium (RWC 2019), San Jose, USA, Jan 9 - Jan 11
• Fast Software Encryption (FSE 2019), Paris, France, Mar 25 - Mar 28
• Public Key Cryptography (PKC 2019), Beijing, China, Apr 14 - Apr 17
• Eurocrypt 2019, Darmstadt, Germany, May 19 - May 23

To find out more about your IACR and the work of the Board of Directors, please visit https://www.iacr.org and see the minutes of meeting at https://www.iacr.org/docs/minutes/

Happy New Year and best wishes for 2019!

Christian Cachin
IACR President