IACR News
Here you can see all recent updates to the IACR webpage. These updates are also available:
11 August 2021
Announcement
Details here: https://csrc.nist.gov/projects/threshold-cryptography
Consider also joining the TC forum: https://csrc.nist.gov/projects/threshold-cryptography/email-list
27 July 2021
Announcement
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.
- Peihan Miao
- Tal Rabin
- Xiao Wang
21 May 2021
Announcement
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)
06 May 2021
Registration is free with IACR membership.
Announcement22 March 2021
Announcement
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.
11 March 2021
Announcement
The problem has now been fixed
--The eprint editors & maintainers
27 November 2020
Announcement
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
19 May 2020
Announcement
24 April 2020
Dates: 11-15 May 2020
AnnouncementThe 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.
14 March 2020
Announcement
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.
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.
01 March 2020
Announcement
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.
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/
18 February 2020
Announcement
24 July 2019
Announcement
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.
19 July 2019
Announcement
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
18 July 2019
Announcement
03 January 2019
Announcement
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
19 October 2018
Public comments on draft report thru Oct 22
Announcement- Draft NIST report (NISTIR 8214) on threshold schemes for cryptographic primitives --- public comments period till October 22, 2018.
- NIST Threshold Cryptography Workshop will take place March 11-12, 2019. The submission deadline is December 17, 2018.
- Project webpage: https://csrc.nist.gov/projects/threshold-cryptography
- Mailing list (public forum): https://csrc.nist.gov/Projects/Threshold-Cryptography/Collaboration
13 October 2018
IACR Youtube Channel
Announcement25 June 2018
Announcement
This year holds again great promise for cryptology research with the ongoing interest in blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies. As a sign of this, the word "crypto" has received a new interpretation in newspapers, by the public, and by your favorite search engine: Crypto no longer stands first for the conference that we have held in Santa Barbara since 1981.
This message contains information about recent some developments in IACR. The Board of Directors held a virtual meeting back in March (using Zoom teleconference!) and an in-person meeting at Eurocrypt in Tel-Aviv.
Crypto 2018
The Crypto 2018 conference will accommodate seven "workshops" or affiliated events, taking place from Friday to Sunday before the main conference. Registrations are flowing in at a steady pace. Together with the general chair Tal Rabin, I urge you to register and book your trips early.
https://crypto.iacr.org/2018/
The cutoff date for discounted early registration is July 5th!
Task force on diversity
The IACR has established a task force on diversity, whose goal is to:
a) support women attending IACR events;
b) promote and support IACR and other events that advance diversity (defined broadly);
c) improve diversity, especially representation of women and people from Asia, within IACR governance.
This is a community effort. Tal Rabin and Douglas Stebila are leading the task force and are looking forward to receiving your help, suggestions, and comments.
Code of Conduct for IACR events
The IACR has adopted a code of conduct for its conferences. All events of the IACR must refer to this code of conduct, which starts as follows:
The IACR is committed to providing an experience free of harassment and discrimination in its events, respecting the dignity of every participant. Participants who violate this code may be sanctioned and/or expelled from the event, at the discretion of the General Chair(s). Serious incidents may be referred to the IACR Ethics Committee for further possible action.
You can find the full text in the General Chair guidelines, section 8.10, on the website under:
https://www.iacr.org/docs/minutes/
For supporting this on behalf of the Board, the role of a Code-of-Conduct Liaison has been created. This is a person participating as observer in the Board. The Board has appointed Tal Rabin to this role.
IACR Schools in Cryptology
Cryptology Schools typically provide multiple days of intensive learning and constitute an efficient way to provide high-quality training for graduate students, as well as for professionals. The IACR sponsors such schools with financial contributions. The next schools in 2018 are:
Symmetric Proof Techniques
July 29-August 3, 2018, Bertinoro, Italy.
https://spotniq.school/
School on Modern Cryptography
July 30-August 3, 2018, Buenos Aires, Argentina.
http://www.dc.uba.ar/events/eci/2018/cursos
If you are interested to organize an IACR Cryptology School, please apply by June 30. More information is available on the website at https://iacr.org/schools/
To find out more about your IACR and the discussions of the Board of Directors, read the minutes of meeting at https://www.iacr.org/docs/minutes/
Best regards,
Christian Cachin
IACR President
06 January 2018
Announcement
Happy New Year and best wishes to everyone for 2018! Here is an update on recent developments in the IACR.
To start out with some statistics, currently the IACR has 1500 members for 2018. All 2017 IACR conferences together counted almost 1900 attendees in total and published 359 papers. As you can read next, these numbers will grow in the future.
RWC 2018:
One important development for the IACR in 2017 was the establishment of the IACR Symposium on Real World Crypto (RWC), by joining forces with the former Real-World Crypto conference. According to the traditional schedule of RWC this event will now open IACR's calendar year. I am looking forward to seeing many of you at the first IACR-RWC, which takes place in Zurich on January 10-12. RWC 2018 has been completely booked out for weeks already, we expect 600 attendees. This is the largest number of registrations for an IACR event ever.
Elections:
The Board's composition changes for 2018, following the recent election: Josh Benaloh leaves and Tancrède Lepoint joins.
Let me take this occasion to thank Josh for his outstanding and long-lasting service to the IACR, with roles as secretary, Crypto general chair, the Board's program-chair contact and more. I could trace it back to him serving as secretary starting 1999. He pushed hard to make IACR actually use the cryptographic protocols he was interested in, and he succeeded when IACR adopted Helios online voting for elections. As president I was always glad to count on his deep understanding of votes and elections.
In the regular schedule General Chairs Steve Myers and S.M. Yiu will leave, Marc Fischlin, Muthu V., and Mitsuru Matsui join in 2018. I would like to thank all General Chairs of the 2017 conferences and their teams for their tremendous work.
Minutes from meetings of the Board of Directors:
As always you can find information from IACR Board of Directors in the minutes of the meetings available online (https://iacr.org/docs/minutes/minutes.html). Please take a look to understand the current projects and challenges of IACR.
Policy on Conflicts of Interest:
The IACR Board of Directors has recently finalized a formal Policy on Conflicts of Interest. This was discussed already at Eurocrypt, Crypto and Asiacrypt. You can find the text online under https://iacr.org/docs/.
To cite from the document: In particular, the authors of each submission are asked during the submission process to identify all members of the Program Committee who have an automatic conflict of interest (COI) with the submission. A reviewer and an author have an automatic COI if one was the thesis advisor/supervisor to the other, or if they've shared an institutional affiliation within the last two years, or if they've published two or more joint authored works within the last three years, or if they are in the same family. Any further COIs of importance should be separately disclosed. It is the responsibility of all authors to ensure correct reporting of COI information. Submissions with incorrect or incomplete COI information may be rejected without consideration of their merits.
Best regards,
Christian Cachin
IACR President