Minutes of the Board of Directors Meeting at Eurocrypt 2004
************************ EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ************************
The IACR Board of Directors met on May 2, 2004 during Eurocrypt 2004 in
Interlaken.
Reports were presented on the disposition of Eurocrypt 2003, Crypto
2003, Asiacrypt 2003, CHES 2003, Eurocrypt 2004, Crypto 2004, Asiacrypt
2004, CHES 2004, FSE 2004, and Eurocrypt 2005. Additional reports were
presented on the Newsletter, the Journal of Cryptology, IACR finances,
and IACR Fellows Selection Committee. A special report was presented on
IT strategy issues.
The Board discussed and agreed to reviving the practice of awarding "in
cooperation with the IACR" status to appropriate non-IACR conferences
and workshops. The Board also discussed the apparently growing problem
of duplicate parallel submissions of similar papers to multiple
conferences.
The Board appointed an Election Committee consisting of Dawson, Hughes,
and Quisquater.
The Board accepted a proposal to hold Eurocrypt 2006 in St. Petersburg,
Russia with Anatoly Lebedev as General Chair.
The Board voted to ask Serge Vaudenay to serve as Eurocrypt 2006 Program
Chair.
The Board accepted a proposal to hold FSE 2005 in Paris, France.
The Board voted to encourage IACR Program Committees to establish "best
paper" awards.
************************ DETAILED MINUTES ************************
Board of Directors Meeting
Eurocrypt
Interlaken
2 May 2004
Board President Clark called the meeting to order at 10:00.
Present were Benaloh, Berson, Biham, Cachin, Camenisch, Clark, Damgaard,
Dawson, Hughes, Kim, Knudsen, Langford, Lenstra, Maurer, McCurley,
Preneel, and Quisquater. In addition, Greg Rose and Junji Shikata were
present.
A Proxy was held for Wright by Berson.
________________________________________________________________________
The agenda for the meeting comprised the following.
Opening Matters
===============
- Welcome participants - identification of proxies (Clark) (5)
- Review and approve agenda (All) (5)
- Approve Minutes from last meeting (Benaloh/Clark) (5)
- Review of Actions from last meeting (Benaloh/Clark) (10)
- Matters arising from last meeting (Benaloh/Clark) (10)
- Eurocrypt 2004 status (Camenisch) (5)
Reports
=======
- Newsletter/eprint archive report (Cachin) (5)
- Journal of Cryptology report (Maurer) (5)
- Financial report (Langford) (5)
Committees
==========
- IT Strategy/Online transactions (McCurley) (20)
- Appoint 2004 Election Committee (Clark) (5)
Past Conferences/Workshops
==========================
- Eurocrypt 2003 review (?) (5)
- Crypto 2003 review (Rose) (5)
- Asiacrypt 2003 review (?) (5)
- CHES 2003 review (Quisquater) (5)
- FSE 2004 review (Preneel/Clark) (2)
- PKC 2004 review (?)
Forthcoming Conferences
=======================
- CHES 2004 Update (Quisquater) (5)
- Crypto 2004 (Hughes) (5)
- Eurocrypt 2005 (Damgaard) (5)
- Asiacrypt steering committee report (?) (10)
- Discuss Asiacrypt 2005 Local issues (Preneel) (10)
- Asiacrypt 2006 proposal (Prof. Pei) (15)
- FSE 2005 proposal (Preneel) (10)
- CHES 2005 Informal Proposal (Quisquater) (5)
- PKC 06 Proposal (10)
- Eurocrypt 2007 Update (Preneel) (5)
Program Chairs
==============
- Program and General Chair List Maintenance (Benaloh) (5)
- Discuss/Appoint Asiacrypt 2006 Program Chair (Benaloh/Clark) (10)
- Discuss/Appoint Eurocrypt 2006 Program Chair (Benaloh/Clark) (10)
Other Business
==============
- "In Co-Operation With" Status (Clark) (2)
- Cooperation between IACR and ITS (IEEE Information Theory Society)
(Junji Shikata) (10)
- Distinguished Lecturer Crypto 2005 (Clark) (5)
- The email bcc protocol problem (Clark) (1)
- The protocol for parallel submission problem (Preneel) (5)
- Further S-V CD to fill gaps in coverage (Clark/Preneel) (5)
- Best paper award (Clark - obo Vaudenay) (5)
Closing Matters
===============
- Draft agenda for general business meeting of members (all) (10)
- Review of action items
________________________________________________________________________
Clark began by asking that laptops be used during the meeting only for
IACR business and that mobile phones be shut off (except, of course, for
the conference organizer).
The agenda was then reviewed and no amendments were offered.
The previous meeting minutes were then reviewed and several corrections
were offered.
________________________________________________________________________
Clark then reported on open action items.
He indicated that Preneel still had not received feedback from Eurocrypt
2003 General Chair Gawinecki.
Haber arrived at this time.
Clark reported that Langford had completed the finances for Eurocrypt
2003.
He said that issues regarding the relationship between the IACR and
Springer-Verlag were still under discussion.
He indicated that McCurley was still working on migration of the IACR
database.
Clark said that he was still seeking additional IT support.
He also said that McCurley was still working on issues regarding the
relationship with the IACR Secretariat and that Clark, Langford, and
Micky Swick were still working to define terms of reference for the
Secretariat.
________________________________________________________________________
Eurocrypt 2004 General Chair Camenisch then reported on the status of
the conference.
He said that there had been 410 registrants as of 1 May of which all but
30 had prepaid, that everything was going smoothly, and that finances
were expected to be on target.
________________________________________________________________________
Eurocrypt 2004 Program Chair Cachin then reported on the conference.
He said that the rump session would be in an "unusual" setting that
would include a band.
He added that the program was good with 36 papers accepted out of 206
submissions (more than any prior IACR conference).
McCurley asked about interaction with the IACR Secretariat.
Cachin reported that there had been some issues with data for a mailing
that had been sent in a zip file which was discarded resulting in an
unrevised mailing being sent to members.
McCurley asked who in the Secretariat had been worked with, and Cachin
and Camenisch said they dealt mostly with Joe Allegretti and to a lesser
extent with Sally Vito.
________________________________________________________________________
Newsletter Editor Cachin then reported on the Newsletter and ePrint
Archive.
He said that there were no issues with the Newsletter but that the
ePrint Archive was receiving many more questionable submissions.
Preneel asked whether this process could be somehow automated or
delegated, and Cachin replied that he had solicited some help.
Haber asked how many submissions were rejected, and Cachin responded
that the number was approximately 20%.
Biham asked whether this meant that about 40 submissions were rejected
per year, and Cachin confirmed this number.
Langford asked whether the same people were responsible for most of the
rejections, and Cachin replied that some but not all were from a small
set of frequent submitters.
Clark inquired about the magnitude of the problem, and Cachin responded
that it was not yet substantial.
________________________________________________________________________
Clark noted that Journal of Cryptology Editor-in-Chief Maurer was not
present but that there was nothing new to report.
________________________________________________________________________
Treasurer Langford then presented the highlights of a pre-circulated
report.
She said that the IACR had endured a difficult year in 2003. She
detailed an approximately $40,000 loss incurred by Eurocrypt 2003, a
small surplus returned by Crypto 2003, and an approximately $500 loss
(corrected from the original report) suffered by Asiacrypt 2003.
She then thanked McCurley for his efforts at establishing web-based
registration -- noting that there had been 8 transactions in the initial
test.
Dawson asked about the financial status of IACR sponsored workshops.
Langford replied that she thought that PKC was close to even, and
Preneel responded that he thought that FSE was also close to even.
McCurley asked how workshop financials were run, and Langford responded
that the finances were managed independently of IACR conference
financials. McCurley suggested that a persistence of accounts would be
nice to have.
Clark then reported that he had researched multi-currency accounts and
had found HSBC to be the best option. He added that costs were still
uncertain and that authentication of authorized signatures appeared to
be cumbersome.
McCurley noted that Wells-Fargo was willing to do this but that the
costs would be very high. Langford then added that credit card payments
were being run through Wells-Fargo and asked if a single account would
be better.
Camenisch noted that setting up a local account for Eurocrypt 2004 had
been easy, and Cachin added that local accounts have advantages and
organizers would need them anyway. McCurley replied that the
infrastructure required to receive money into new accounts is difficult.
Clark took an action item to attempt to formalize finances of IACR
workshops and check further with the Secretariat about its possible role
in this matter.
Berson then asked about IACR assets, and Langford replied that net
assets were approximately $367,000 as of January 1 and had been
approximately $305,000 the prior year.
Rose noted that since the association between IACR and its sponsored
workshops is recent, the Secretariat may not be up to date on the
essential details.
Preneel asked about the effect on monetary changes, and Langford replied
that there is an effort made to separate out currency fluctuation when
feasible. Clark added that budget proposals include exchange rate
projections.
________________________________________________________________________
McCurley then made a presentation regarding IT status and options.
He described the scope of his study as including the membership
database, conference registration, electronic payments, and a variety of
other topics which were deferred for this report comprising e-mail
issues, web site management, the ePrint Archive, conference submission
and review software, and the IACR archive.
He described the goals of better integration, but expressed concern at
the difficulty of outsourcing since it would pose issues with the
By-Laws, the Secretariat, and the small size of the IACR. He added that
the membership database, which is currently in Access format, is labor
intensive to manage and that he planned to migrate it to another
database management system.
Security concerns were also identified as a major issue. McCurley noted
that there were many good aspects of the current web host at Southwest
Cyber Port but also many limitations.
He then described the electronic registration pilot which is using an
integrated membership database and authorize.net for payment processing.
McCurley expressed the hope that management of IT could be put under the
purview of the Membership Secretary and described his desire to
transition that effort soon since he did not intent to seek re-election
to the Board.
Clark and the Board thanked McCurley for his efforts.
Damgaard asked what impact this would have on General Chairs, and
McCurley responded that General Chairs must be able to manage the IT
system and deal with problems.
Clark then noted that there had been a previous action item that he had
together with McCurley to prepare a strawman document. McCurley replied
that a document had been written for Crypto 2003, and the action item
was closed.
Clark then noted that the Membership Secretary position was open and
said that he would revise the terms of reference for the position to
include IT.
McCurley noted that this role also overlaps that of the Newsletter
Editor, and Clark committed to discuss this with McCurley and Cachin and
present a plan at the forthcoming Crypto conference Board meeting.
McCurley then asked what would be presented at the Membership meeting.
Clark said that he would have to begin by meeting with upcoming General
Chairs, and Hughes committed his cooperation.
Clark then said that at the Membership meeting he would present a
commitment to provide on-line registration for Crypto 2004.
McCurley noted that the electronic process would separate conference
registration from room and board reservations.
Rose then asked if Southwest Cyber Port would manage back-ups and
security patches, and McCurley replied that they would do so only if the
IACR system were configured identically to their own.
Rose then suggested that we consider purchasing more bandwidth from
Southwest Cyber Port rather than purchasing a new machine.
________________________________________________________________________
Clark then turned the discussion to planning for the 2004 elections.
He noted that many offices would be up for election and poled Board
members as to their intentions.
Clark began by stating his intention to stand for re-election as IACR
President but committed himself to serving at most one more term.
Preneel indicated his intention to stand for re-election as Vice
President.
Benaloh stated that he did not intend to seek re-election as Secretary.
Langford stated that she did not intend to seek re-election as
Treasurer.
McCurley stated that he did not intend to seek re-election to the Board.
Biham said that he was unsure as to whether he would seek re-election to
the Board.
Matsumoto was not present.
Clark then asked for volunteers for the 2004 Election Committee.
Dawson, Quisquater, and Hughes agreed to serve.
Hughes suggested that paper ballots may be less reliable than web-based
alternatives.
McCurley noted that the Election Committee has responsibility both to
run the election and seek candidates.
Clark encouraged Board members to also solicit candidates, and Preneel
encouraged an earlier start to the process. The Election Committee
accepted this responsibility.
________________________________________________________________________
The Board recessed for a break at 11:17.
The Board reconvened at 11:31.
________________________________________________________________________
Clark then reported on the work of the IACR Fellows Selection Committee.
He thanked the committee for its work and noted that there had been ten
nominations from which six Fellows had been selected. Clark then
announced that the membership of the Selection Committee would remain
unchanged but that Damgaard would take over as Committee Chair.
Lenstra asked about targeted number of additional IACR Fellows, and
Damgaard replied that he expected smaller numbers in the future.
Clark announced that he would award plaques to the new Fellows at the
Eurocrypt banquet. Damgaard asked that members be reminded that the
fellowship selection process is continuing, and Haber suggested that
this be mentioned at the conference opening.
________________________________________________________________________
Clark and Langford then proceeded to a review of Eurocrypt 2003 but said
there was nothing to add beyond the prior report.
________________________________________________________________________
Rose then reported on Crypto 2003.
He said that the conference returned a surplus of approximately $50,000.
He noted that this was partially due to a catering glitch which resulted
in too little food being provided at the rump session. Rose added that
he found Joe Allegretti and the Secretariat easy to work with. He also
noted that visas were a problem for some and suggested a three to four
month lead in future visa applications.
Clark noted that it is IACR policy to hold conferences only in locations
that allow full attendance.
________________________________________________________________________
Asiacrypt Steering Committee Chair Dawson then reported on Asiacrypt
2003.
He said that there were 50 student attendees and a total of 40 total
Taiwanese attendees together with 110 attendees from outside of Taiwan.
He added that the conference was a success and had had about 170 total
submissions.
Knudsen noted that he has a web page with statistics about IACR
conference submissions.
________________________________________________________________________
Quisquater then reported on CHES 2003.
He said that there were 230 attendees and that 32 papers were accepted
from among 110 submissions. He added that there were 3 invited talks
and a panel.
Quisquater said that the workshop had been held in Cologne, Germany,
that many student grants had been awarded, and that a CD of past CHES
workshops was produced and given to attendees.
________________________________________________________________________
Preneel then reported on FSE 2004.
He said that the workshop had been held in New Delhi, India, that 27
papers were accepted from among 75 submissions, and that there were 65
regular and 10 student attendees.
Preneel said that the workshop lost approximately $900 that would be
covered by the local committee. He added that registration costs in
excess of US$100 were difficult for many Indian professors.
________________________________________________________________________
No report was received on PKC 2004.
________________________________________________________________________
Quisquater then reported on the status of CHES 2004.
He began by saying that there needs to be greater formalization of the
relationship between the IACR and the CHES Steering Committee.
He then said that the workshop would be held in the time between SAC and
Crypto and that 32 papers had been accepted from among the 125
submissions.
Quisquater said that IACR membership dues had been collected but that
they had mistakenly been listed as $80 rather than $88.
He noted that there had been some issues with duplicate submissions and
added that it was too late to establish electronic registration for the
workshop.
________________________________________________________________________
Crypto 2004 General Chair Hughes then reported on the status of the
conference.
He said that there had been a 6% increase in non-housing costs but that
housing costs would be unchanged. He added that issuance of letters of
invitation had been a significant issue.
McCurley suggested that the General Chair Guidelines include setting the
break-even threshold at 80% of the prior year's registration unless
extenuating circumstances exist.
Berson then noted that the National Academy of Sciences has a web site
suggesting how to best write letters of invitation.
________________________________________________________________________
Asiacrypt 2004 General Chair Kim then reported on the status of the
conference.
He said that the web page was up and that the submission deadline was
May 24 with 150-200 submissions expected.
He then said that a 40% discount had been obtained from the hotel and
that Korean government support was being solicited to subsidize student
fees.
Kim indicated an expected attendance of 200-250 with projected costs of
US$480-500 (excluding IACR membership).
Dawson inquired as to the size of the meeting room to which Kim replied
that it could hold up to 500 people.
Langford asked about electronic registration, and Kim responded that he
would work with McCurley to enable electronic registration.
________________________________________________________________________
Eurocrypt 2005 General Chair Damgaard then reported on the status of the
conference.
He said that finances were under control and that contracts had been
signed with the conference center and management company.
He projected registration costs of US$525 (excluding IACR membership
dues) at the current exchange rate with a break-even threshold set at
330 attendees.
He added that an organizing committee had been set and that a
preliminary web site had been completed.
________________________________________________________________________
Asiacrypt Steering Committee Chair Dawson then reported that Shanghai
had been selected as the venue for Asiacrypt 2006.
He said that non-registered attendees had been a problem at some
Asiacrypt conferences and noted that two new countries -- Indonesia and
Viet Nam -- had joined the Steering Committee.
________________________________________________________________________
Clark and Preneel then turned to the problem of non-paying attendees.
Questions were raised about the difficulty that IACR membership dues
presented to some potential registrants and the possibility of a
"lectures only" registration category.
Clark asked if guidance could be provided to General Chairs and wondered
about recommending the seeking of sponsorships.
A discussion then ensued about possible guidelines and ways to encourage
registration without creating undue burden.
________________________________________________________________________
The Board then recessed for lunch at 12:39.
The Board reconvened at 14:21.
________________________________________________________________________
Cachin gave his proxy to Lenstra and departed.
Camenisch gave his proxy to Langford and departed.
________________________________________________________________________
Preneel then presented the proposal for FSE 2005 as prepared by the FSE
Steering Committee.
He said that the workshop would be held in Paris using university
facilities. He then said that the dates could not yet be finalized and
that a break-even point had been set at 60 attendees.
************************************************************************
The Board then voted 15-0 to accept the proposal to hold FSE 2005 in
Paris.
************************************************************************
Quisquater then presented information on CHES 2005 from the CHES
Steering Committee.
He said that locations were being explored with Edinburgh as a possible
venue and that a formal proposal would be presented at Crypto.
________________________________________________________________________
Clark reported that a proposal for PKC 2006 would also be presented at
Crypto.
________________________________________________________________________
Clark then asked that the Board formalize the plan for Eurocrypt 2006.
************************************************************************
The Board then voted 15-0 with 1 abstention to accept the proposal to
hold Eurocrypt 2006 in St. Petersburg, Russia with Anatoly Lebedev as
General Chair.
************************************************************************
Preneel then reported on preliminary planning for Eurocrypt 2007.
He said that proposals were being received for Mikonos, Greece and by
Malaga, Spain.
________________________________________________________________________
The Board then updated IACR service lists.
________________________________________________________________________
The Board then discussed Program Chair candidates for Eurocrypt 2006.
************************************************************************
The Board voted to ask Serge Vaudenay to serve as Eurocrypt 2006 Program
Chair [Vaudenay subsequently accepted].
************************************************************************
Clark then raised the issue of conferences and workshops held "in
cooperation with the IACR".
He noted that no meetings had been granted this status recently but that
the IEEE Conference on Security and Privacy (Oakland Conference) had
held this status for many years and still held it.
Berson then proposed that guidelines be established for granting of "in
cooperation with" status.
Clark announced that he had granted this status to the forthcoming
Conference on Email and Anti-Spam.
Dawson suggested that meetings granted this status should avoid time
conflicts with major IACR conferences.
Preneel suggested that other meetings should be sought to accept this
status.
Haber thanked Clark and Berson for there efforts at re-establishing this
status.
________________________________________________________________________
Junji Shikata (on behalf of Matsumoto) then presented a proposal for
cooperation between the IACR and the IEEE Information Theory Society.
The proposal suggested joint conferences, liaison officers, sharing of
the ePrint Archive, mutual discounts, and a special issue of IEEE
Transactions of Information Theory devoted to joint work.
Clark committed to contacting Hideki Imai, the president of the IEEE
Information Theory Society, to offer "in cooperation with" status and
discuss liaison officers.
________________________________________________________________________
Clark then asked for nominations for the IACR Distinguished Lecturer.
________________________________________________________________________
Preneel then raised the issue of parallel submissions of essentially
identical papers to multiple conferences.
He said that this is a growing problem which is difficult to detect with
blind submissions and rules restricting the exchanging of information
between Program Committees.
Clark suggested more explicit wording in Calls for Papers and asked for
suggestions.
McCurley suggested better sharing of submission information between
Program Committees and, if needed, changing Calls for Papers to
explicitly allow such sharing.
Berson suggested including a statement that "violators of this policy
should have no expectation of anonymity."
Clark questioned whether a formal protocol is necessary at this time.
Dawson suggested adding a sentence to Calls for Papers to explicitly
allowing sharing of information across Program Committees.
Clark suggested the wording "IACR reserves the right to share
information about submissions with other Program Committees."
Knudsen said that he would make suitable updates to the Program Chair
Guidelines.
________________________________________________________________________
Clark then thanked Preneel and Cachin for their work in updating the CD
of past IACR proceedings.
Preneel noted that there is still no CD for early Asiacrypts, early FSE
workshops, and early PKC workshops, and he asked if a CD could be
produced to fill this gap.
Clark committed to discussing this with Springer-Verlag.
________________________________________________________________________
Clark then brought forward a proposal from Serge Vaudenay to establish a
best paper award for IACR conferences.
Hughes noted that the first paper is generally that which was regarded
as the best.
McCurley said that he now supports such awards since they have become
common elsewhere.
Berson offered the opinion that this should be done if it helps members
receive appropriate credit for their work.
************************************************************************
The Board then voted 13-0 with 4 abstentions to encourage its conference
and workshop Program Committees to select one or more papers for a best
paper award.
************************************************************************
McCurley then suggested that process is important in this respect.
Clark added that authors should be notified and announcements made at
conference and workshop openings.
________________________________________________________________________
Clark then asked for other business.
Hughes asked about the rate that students should be charged for
conference registration and was told that this rate has traditionally
been half the standard registration fee.
________________________________________________________________________
An agenda for the Membership Meeting was then prepared.
This included the usual preamble, identification of members of the
Board, information about IACR membership, information about 2004 IACR
elections, a finance report, a report on forthcoming IACR conferences
and workshops, a report on the Journal of Cryptology, discussion of
current issues, information about the CD of recent IACR conferences and
workshops, description of "in cooperation with" status, information
about electronic registration, a reminder that conference proposals
should be decoupled from Program Chair suggestions, and announcement of
the suggestion to establish "best paper" awards.
________________________________________________________________________
The meeting adjourned at 16:26.
________________________________________________________________________
Respectfully submitted
Josh Benaloh
IACR Secretary
________________________________________________________________________
Attachments
________________________________________________________________________
Eurocrypt 2005 status report
Ivan Damgaard
Eurocrypt 2005 General Chair
21-APR-2004
Dear Board of Directors,
Various things on Eurocrypt 05 for your information (I do plan to attend
the board meeting, but maybe this can save a little time at the
meeting):
The budget is essentially unchanged since the last version I sent to
Andy and Susan, in particular we have dropped the lunch on the last day,
as suggested. I enclose a copy. There are all sorts of ways to play with
the break-even point, as a function of the registration fee and what we
think the euro/dollar exchange rate is going to be. For instance, at the
current exchange rate we can have a registration fee of 525$ and break
even at 330 participants.
This doesn't look as good as when we did the first budget, but this is
due only to the drop in the dollar exchange rate. If the dollar would go
back to its level before the big drop, 485$ would be a reasonable
registration fee. The sponsorships in the budget are essentially already
secured, and we are still working on this, so things may improve later.
To Andy, who asked about VAT: we will be considered a non-profit event,
and so we do not have to pay VAT on top of the prices we charge. On the
other hand, we cannot get refund for VAT on the expenses we have. This
is all reflected in the current budget.
Also to Andy about insurance: I asked around and it seems that virtually
no one buys insurance for conferences held in Denmark. I have therefore
not done anything further on this, but I'm happy to listen to advice.
We will set up a preliminary web page next week. It will be called
www.brics.dk/eurocrypt05/ I'll let you know when it's up.
Ronald tells me that the PC is complete except perhaps for 1-2 members.
That's all for now, see you in Interlaken!
regards, Ivan
________________________________________________________________________
IACR Financial Report
Susan Langford
IACR Treasurer
30-APR-2004
Treasurer's Report for calendar year 2003
As of December 31, 2003, the IACR had $206,000 held in certificates of
deposit, approximately $357,000 held in the main IACR and Crypto
checking accounts, and approximately 25,000 at UCSB. Of these amounts
about $71,000 were due from 2003 expenses and $150,000 is already set
aside for specific expenditures in 2003, leaving about $367,000 as the
true surplus.
2003 Conferences
Total Income Membership Secretariat
Surplus
Eurocrypt $170,000 $16,000 $3000
-$39,500
Crypto $323,000 $25,000 $11,000
$42,000
Asiacrypt $74,000 $8,000 $1500
-$1,500
The Crypto income does not include on campus housing.
The IACR ran a web registration trial for Eurocrypt 2004. We have
opened a merchant account, and have processed transactions. As of 4/29,
we have settled 8 transactions for a total of $6822.
Susan Langford
IACR Treasurer
________________________________________________________________________
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