Minutes of the Minutes of the Membership Meeting at Crypto 2003

Membership Meeting
Crypto 2003
Santa Barbara
20 August 2003
 
IACR President Clark convened the meeting at 17:08.
 
Clark presented the meeting agenda which consisted of information about
Crypto 2003, the IACR, its Board of Directors, upcoming elections,
finances, conferences and workshops, the Journal of Cryptology, the
Newsletter, issues with Springer-Verlag, IACR Fellows, current issues
(including information technology), and a period of open discussion.
 
Clark then introduced the IACR Directors and Officers.
 
Crypto 2003 Program Chair Boneh then presented information about the
conference.  He said that there had been 169 submissions (6 fewer than
the prior year) from 31 distinct top-level domains, that 34 (20.12%) had
been accepted (5 fewer than the prior year), and that over 400 pages of
reviews had been written.  He noted an exponential growth rate of
submissions to the deadline with the highest rate of acceleration on the
last day.  Boneh gave acceptance rates by top-level domain, noted that
the average number of authors on submissions was 2.053254 and on
accepted papers was 2.108108, and that the average title length of
submissions was 58.319527 character whereas it was 58.54051 characters
for accepted papers.
 
Clark then gave plaques of appreciation to Boneh and General Chair Rose
and general applause was given.
 
Clark then informed attendees that unless they'd taken action otherwise,
they would be members of the IACR for 2004.
 
Clark then quoted the purposes of the IACR from the Bylaws as "to
advance the theory and practice of cryptology and 
related fields, and to promote the interests of its members with respect
thereto, and to serve the public welfare."  
He then described the three annual IACR conferences of Eurocrypt,
Crypto, and Asiacrypt and the two IACR-sponsored 
workshops:  FSE and PKC.  He then described IACR publications of the
Journal of Cryptology, the IACR Newsletter, and the ePrint server at
eprint.iacr.org.  Finally, he noted the web site at www.iacr.org.
 
Clark then described the IACR Board of Directors as consisting of four
elected Officers, nine elected Directors, six appointed General Chairs,
and three additional appointees.  He noted that the IACR manages
approximately US$500,000 annually making it the size of a small-medium
all-volunteer business with no employees.
 
Clark then described the upcoming election of Directors noting that the
terms of Directors Berson, Desmedt, and Knudsen were expiring.  He
introduced the Election Committee of Hughes, Preneel, and Wright.
 
IACR Treasurer Langford then presented a report.  She stated that in
2002, Eurocrypt had taken in $224,000 in receipts and $32,000 in
membership dues and had returned a surplus of $23,000, that Crypto had
taken in $217,000 in receipts and $25,000 in membership dues and had
returned a surplus of $17,000, and that Asiacrypt had taken in $70,000
in receipts and $6,000 in membership dues and had experienced a loss of
$8,000 with an additional $7,000 loss due to currency fluctuation.
 
Clark then said that all IACR conferences work in US dollars and that
the currency fluctuations tend to even out.  He also said that IACR
wanted to begin working in multiple currencies and that the IACR
reserves were not expected to increase in 2003 due principally to losses
incurred at Eurocrypt.  He noted that declining conference attendance
was due to many causes -- mostly not unique to the IACR and presented
attendance numbers over the history of the IACR.  He said that future
conferences would be budgeting for lower attendance, that costs would be
cut, and that sponsorships would be sought.  Finally, Clark stated a
desire to reduce mailing costs (currently about $20,000 per annum) by
ceasing mailing of IACR membership lists and instead making them
available as .PDF files by email.
 
Desmedt asked if it would be possible to remove just email addresses
from the electronic list, and Clark responded that provisions were made
only for all or no personal information about each member.  Rose
suggested that a copyright notice be added to the list together with a
"Not to be redistributed" statement.  Langford noted that the printed
list had been designed to be difficult to scan but that this property no
longer held true.
 
A question was asked about a possible CarribeanCrypt.  Langford
responded that IACR had not solicited workshop affiliations but had
agreed to sponsor several in the past.  She then noted that the IACR had
decided upon a moratorium on new workshop sponsorships because of an
overloaded infrastructure.  Feigenbaum noted that the Financial
Cryptography workshop was sponsored by the IFCA.  Orman asked if
developing countries might be able to influence venues and other IACR
activities.  Langford said that the IACR would be happy to hear from and
work with people and suggested speaking individually with Board members.
 
Clark then gave information on upcoming IACR conferences and workshops.
 
Asiacrypt 2003 would be held November 30 - December 4 at the Grand Hotel
in Taipei, Taiwan.  Chin-Chen Chang would be the General Chair, Chi-Sung
Laih would be the Program Chair, and the IACR Distinguished Lecture
would be given by Don Coppersmith.
 
FSE 2004 would be held February 5-7 in New Dehli, India.  Subhamoy
Maitra and R. L. Karandikar would be General Chairs and Bimal Roy and
Willi Meier would be Program Chairs.
 
PKC 2004 would be held in Singapore March 1-3.  Robert Deng would be the
General Chair and Feng Bao would be the Program Chair.
 
Eurocrypt 2004 Program Chair Christian Cachin then spoke about the
conference to be held May 2-6 at the Casino Kursaal in Interlaken,
Switzerland.  Jan Camenisch would be the General Chair and the IACR
Distinguished Lecture would be given by Whit Diffie.
 
Clark then resumed describing other upcoming IACR conferences and
workshops.
 
Crypto 2004 would be held August 15-19 in Santa Barbara.  James Hughes
would be the General Chair and Matt Franklin would be the Program Chair.
 
Asiacrypt 2004 would be held December 5-9 on Jeju Island, Korea.
Kwangjo Kim would be the General Chair and Pil Joong Lee would be the
Program Chair.
 
Eurocrypt 2005 would be tentatively held May 22-26 in Arhus, Denmark.
Ivan Damgard would be the General Chair and Ronald Cramer would be the
Program Chair.
 
Eurocrypt 2006 would be held in St. Petersburg, Russia with Anatoly
Lebedev serving as General Chair.
 
Clark then solicited conference proposals for 2007.
 
Clark then announced that as of 2004, the Cryptographic Hardware and
Embedded Systems (CHES) workshop would be sponsored by the IACR.  He
also said that the IACR would not be sponsoring any additional workshops
for the foreseeable future.
 
Clark then described the Journal of Cryptology, published by
Springer-Verlag, as the premier journal in the field.  He said that it
was mailed to all IACR members and that its Editor-in-Chief Ueli Maurer
solicited high-quality papers for publication.
 
Clark then discussed the IACR Newsletter, published thrice annually,
which is emailed to members and available at www.iacr.org/newsletter.
He described the contents as including a calendar of events, job
opportunities, publication announcements, and more.  He added that
Newsletter Editor Cachin solicited submissions to newsletter@iacr.org.
 
Clark then described the new contract signed with Springer-Verlag at the
end of 2002.  He noted that the Link service had been experiencing
difficulties but was available to members with username "iacr02" and
password "jciacr" at link.spinger-ny.com and link.springer.de.
 
Clark then introduced IACR Archivist Orman who said that she was
collecting electronic versions of all IACR materials.
 
Clark then introduced Joan Feigenbaum to discuss the IACR Fellows
program.  She said that IACR Fellows would be recognized for "Advancing
the science, technology, and practice of cryptology and related fields;
promoting the free exchange of ideas and information about cryptography
and related fields; developing and maintaining the professional skill
and integrity of individuals in the cryptologic community; and advancing
the standing of the cryptologic community in the wider scientific and
technical worlds and promoting fruitful relationships between the IACR
and other scientific and technical organizations."  She said that
nomination instructions were available at www.iacr.org/fellows and
listed the selection committee as consisting of herself Ivan Damgaard,
Cynthia Dwork, Hugo Krawczyk, and Michael Wiener.
 
Tal Rabin asked if non-IACR members should be considered as Fellows, and
Rose replied that there was no choice in the matter as the criteria had
been written into the IACR By-laws.
 
Feigenbaum stated that the ultimate target was that 5% of IACR members
would be Fellows and that perhaps 3-5 would be selected the first year.
She added that candidates, nominators, and endorsers must all be IACR
members.
 
Clark then discussed issues and goals relating to information
technology.  He said that goals included on-line membership management,
conference registration, and submission and review of papers as well as
hosting of the IACR web site and archives and managing Newsletter
mailing.  He said that costs would be mitigated by reducing mailing and
support costs.
 
________________________________________________________________________
 
Clark then opened the floor for general discussion at 17:56.
________________________________________________________________________
 
A question was asked as to whether the new visa policy to start in the
U.S. warranted moving Crypto out of the U.S.  Clark replied that IACR
policy was to not host conferences in countries that did not issue
sufficient visas.
 
A question was asked as to the timing of the next issue of the
Newsletter.  Cachin responded that this issue had been delayed.
 
A question was asked as to whether the IACR should become a showplace by
initiating Internet voting.  Clark responded that he did not want to
endorse a commercial product and wanted to make certain to get things
right.  Desmedt added that the 2002 Election Committee had received two
proposals.
 
 
________________________________________________________________________
 
The Membership Meeting them adjourned at 18:01.
________________________________________________________________________
 
 
 
Respectfully submitted
Josh Benaloh
IACR Secretary