Welcome to the 19th electronic issue of the IACR Newsletter!

For someone working in the field of cryptology, it is impressive and reassuring to see how volume and quality of research this area has been steadily increasing over the last years. Two recent signs of this development are the new Theory of Cryptology Conference , already in its second incarnation in 2005, and the new Track C on Security and Cryptography Foundations at ICALP, the most important European conference in theoretical computer science.

With so many conferences in the field, it is sometimes hard to keep track of all of them. James Muir has provided an overview of LNCS volumes dealing with Cryptology which extends the proceedings list on the IACR web page.

In this newsletter issue, you'll find information about the upcoming IACR conferences and workshops. I also needed to clear my backlog of meeting minutes from IACR board and membership meetings, which had accumulated.

This is the last IACR Newsletter that I produced. After six years and almost 20 issues of the Newsletter, I am making room for some fresh air. I am glad to announce that Jim Hughes will take over as Newsletter editor starting in 2005; I wish him lots of support from all of you, and I am convinced that he'll do a terrific job just as he did with organizing Crypto 2004!

Please send your contributions to the Newsletter to

newsletter@iacr.org

The next issue of the IACR Newsletter is scheduled for publication in 2005. However, announcements will be posted on the IACR Website as soon as possible.

Christian Cachin
IACR Newsletter Editor