Membership Meeting Crypto 2004 Santa Barbara 18 August 2004 IACR President Clark convened the meeting at 17:01. He began by reminding members that this meeting was the only thing between them and the beach. He then told attendees that the purpose of the meeting was to inform members of issues of concern to the IACR. Clark then gave the agenda for the meeting which included the following items. - About I.A.C.R. - Your Board - Membership - 2004 Election - Financial Report - Conferences & Workshops - Journal of Cryptology & Newsletter - Springer-Verlag & Link - Current & New Actions - Online Registration and membership management - "In Co-Operation With" Status - F.I.A.C.R. - New Award - Multiple Submissions - Visa Challenges - Open Discussion Clark then noted that the IACR is a non-profit organisation registered in the USA, and he described its purposes 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." Clark then described the services delivered by the IACR to its members as follows. - Running the Eurocrypt, Crypto, and Asiacrypt conferences - Sponsoring the FSE, PKC, and CHES workshops - Publishing the Journal of Cryptology and the IACR Newsletter - Managing the Eprint Archive at http://eprint.iacr.org/ - Maintaining the association website at http://www.iacr.org Clark then described the IACR Board of Directors comprising - 4 elected Officers - 9 elected Directors - 6 appointed conference General Chairs - 3 appointed positions - Membership Secretary - Newsletter Editor - Journal of Cryptology Editor-in-Chief He then introduced the Board members by name. Clark then provided some "perspective" on the IACR. He noted that the organization's financial turnover is approximately US$500,000 per annum which is consistent with that of a small to medium sized business but that it has no employees. He said that instead the organization relies on volunteer labour and a paid Secretariat. Clark then noted that those who attended this conference would become members of the IACR for 2005 and that anyone who attended an IACR conference or workshop in 2003 was already an IACR member for 2004. Clark then noted that there are annual elections for members of the IACR Board of Directors and solicited interested members to join the Board. He said that all four directors positions and three at-large positions were up for election. He then introduced the election Committee consisting of Dawson, Quisquater, and Hughes. IACR Treasurer Langford then delivered a Financial Report. She said that 2003 was a "cash neutral" year and that lower conference attendance had resulted in lower membership fee income. She noted a loss on Eurocrypt 2003 due to lower than planned attendance, higher prices than originally expected, and SARS. She then said that this was offset by cost-cutting at Crypto and reduced administrative costs such as moving to electronic mailing. Langford said that Eurocrypt 2003 collected US$170,000 in income and $16,000 in membership dues but lost US$36,300 (including currency fluctuations). She said that Crypto 2003 collected US$323,000 in income and $25,000 in membership dues and returned a surplus of US$39,500. She said that Asiacrypt 2003 collected US$74,000 in income and $8,000 in membership dues but lost US$500. She then said that FSE 2003 returned a US$10,000 surplus and that FSE 2004 had suffered a US$900 loss that was being covered by the local committee, that PKC 2003 had broken even and that PKC 2004 had suffered a US$80 loss that was being covered by the local committee, and that financials for CHES had a small surplus that would be used to sponsor students in 2005. Langford then showed a pie chart detailing IACR funds as of December 31, 2003. It indicated total assets of US$588,000 with a surplus of US$367,000 after taking into account outstanding expenses for 2003 and 2004. Langford then showed a bar chart of IACR conference attendance from 1981 through the present which varied from about 100 to about 500 attendees. Langford closed by stating that Eurocrypt 2004 had returned a US$15,000 surplus and that Crypto 2004 was expected to break even despite fewer attendees. She added that continued prudence would be applied in planning and managing of IACR financial affairs including web-based registration and controlling costs of conferences. Questions of the Treasurer were then solicited. Langford was asked if she would run again, and she replied that she would not. She was then asked if she would serve if elected, and Election Committee Chair Hughes responded that this was not allowed. Clark then thanked Crypto 2004 General Chair Hughes and Program Chair Franklin for their efforts and general applause was received. Franklin then thanked the Program Committee for their efforts. Clark then provided information about upcoming IACR conferences and workshops. Asiacrypt 2004 would be held 5-9 December on Jeju Island, Korea with Kwangjo Kim as General Chair and Pil Joong Lee as Program Chair. Eurocrypt 2005 would be held 22-26 May in Århus, Denmark with Ivan Damgård as General Chair and Ronald Cramer as Program Chair. Crypto 2005 would be held 14-18 August at UCSB in Santa Barbara with Stuart Haber as General Chair and Victor Shoup as Program Chair and would include the 2005 IACR Distinguished Lecture given by Ralph Merkle. Asiacrypt 2005 would be held 4-8 December at the Taj Coromandel Hotel in Chennai, India with C. Pandu Rangan as General Chair and Bimal Roy as Program Chair. Eurocrypt 2006 would be held in May or June of 2006 in St. Petersburg, Russia with Anatoly Lebedev as General Chair and Serge Vaudenay as Program Chair. Crypto 2006 would be held 20-24 August (dates are tentative) at UCSB in Santa Barbara with Josh Benaloh as General Chair and Cynthia Dwork as Program Chair. Asiacrypt 2006 would be held in December of 2006 in Shanghai China with Dingyi Pei as General Chair and Xuejia Lai as Program Chair and would include the 2006 IACR Distinguished Lecture. PKC 2005 would be held 23-26 January in Les Diablerets, Switzerland. FSE 2005 would be held 21-23 February in Paris, France. CHES 2005 would be held 29 August - September 1 in Edinburgh, U.K. Clark then solicited proposals for 2007 conferences and referred potential organizers to http://www.iacr.org or to Board members for details on how to submit a proposal. Clark then reported on the status of the Journal of Cryptology which he described as the pre-eminent journal in the field. He noted that roughly 75% of IACR membership fees are used to pay for the Journal and thanked Editor-in-Chief Ueli Maurer for his work, and encouraged authors to submit their best papers to the Journal. He also noted that the Journal had a backlog of accepted papers and that the IACR planned to increase the page budget to reduce the time to publication. Clark then reported on the status of the IACR Newsletter which is electronically mailed to members thrice annually. He noted that the Newsletter is available at http://www.iacr.org/newsletter and includes a calendar of events in the field, job opportunities, publication announcements, and more, and he encouraged members to submit relevant announcements be sent to newsletter@iacr.org. Clark then spoke about the IACR relationship with Springer-Verlag. He noted that Springer-Verlag publishes the proceedings of IACR conferences and workshops in its Lecture Notes in Computer Science series and also publishes the Journal of Cryptology. Clark then said that both of the above are available to full subscribers to the Springer-Verlag "LINK" service at http://link.springer.de and that the Journal of Cryptology is available to all IACR members. Clark added that the IACR was in discussion with Springer-Verlag to allow all of its members to have access to the LINK library of IACR proceedings as well as the Journal of Cryptology. Clark then reported on the new IACR Information Systems. He said that it included online membership management (allowing members to maintain their own data), online conference registration and payment for all IACR conferences and workshops, online submission and review of papers, hosting of the IACR web site and Archive, and management of Newsletter mailing. Clark noted that online registration had been in effect for Crypto 2004 and had successfully processed registration and credit card payments for 100 attendees using MasterCard, Visa, and American Express. Clark said that the registration system operates using IACR member numbers and stored email addresses and that it is important for members to keep their email addresses up to date. Clark then reported on the new IACR Fellows designation. He listed the six inaugural IACR Fellows as Tom Berson, David Chaum, Don Coppersmith, Whitfield Diffie, Ron Rivest, and Adi Shamir and said that a presentation had been made during the Eurocrypt banquet. Clark then described the procedures for selection of IACR Fellows wherein all candidates, nominators, and endorsers must be IACR members (which can be verified by correspondence with iacrmem@iacr.org). He noted that the deadline for the next set of nominations was December 31, 2004 and that instructions could be found at http://www.iacr.org/fellows/. Clark listed the members of the selection committee as Damgård (chair), Dwork, Feigenbaum, Kraczyk, and Wiener. Clark then described the new CD of IACR proceedings of recent Eurocrypt, Crypto, Asiacrypt, FSE, and PKC conferences and workshops. He thanked Bart Preneel, Christian Cachin, and Alfred Hoffmann for their work on this project, and general applause was received. Clark then described how the reach of the IACR could be enhanced with "in Co-Operation with the IACR status" which may be bestowed upon events that further research in cryptology and related fields, have a program selection process that encourages scientific excellence, commit to avoiding schedule conflicts with IACR events, and agree to distribute IACR membership materials to their attendees. He added that the events awarded the status of "in Co-Operation with the IACR" would be linked on the IACR web site and that forms for seeking this status would soon be available on the IACR web site. Clark then described the establishment of the new "best paper" award which MAY be awarded by any IACR program committee. The author(s) of any paper granted such an award should be notified in advance of the conference, the award should be formally announced at the start of any such conference, and the award should also be noted on the IACR website. Clark then noted that multiple conference submissions had become a problem and asserted that IACR conference Program Chairs would reject any papers if they had been submitted in parallel to any other journal, conference, or workshop that has proceedings. Clark then described recent visa challenges that had been suffered by IACR members. He said that citizens of some countries need to apply for visas many months in advance of conferences to ensure that they get their visas in time to travel and asked that potential attendees who may be affected by this be reminded. ________________________________________________________________________ At 17:28 Clark opened the floor for discussion from the membership. ________________________________________________________________________ Susan Landau asked if the Board would consider sending letters to the U.S. Government regarding visa issues, and Clark replied that it had done so in the past. Gideon Yuval noted that interviews were being required, and Rich Schroeppel suggested that the IACR explore moving Crypto to Vancouver. Clark responded that Santa Barbara was not sacrosanct but that it would be a shame to move. Greg Rose indicated that complaints to the U.S. vice-president were the appropriate course of action, and Whit Diffie asked how far in advance we were committed to Santa Barbara to which Crypto 2004 General Chair Hughes replied that the commitment was less than one year. Susan Landau suggested that this meant that the UCSB should be able to apply leverage. Preneel noted that there was also a visa problem at SAC in Canada. A question was asked about whether there were any special plans for the 25th Crypto, and Clark replied that there were none as yet. ________________________________________________________________________ The Membership Meeting was then adjourned at 17:32. ________________________________________________________________________ Respectfully submitted Josh Benaloh IACR Secretary