Board of Directors Meeting Crypto '99 Santa Barbara 15 August 1999 _______________________________________________________________________ The Board President called the meeting to order at 10:07am. Present were Beaver, Benaloh, Berson, Biham, Brassard, Cachin, Clark, Feigenbaum, Franklin, Hruby, Landrock, Matsumoto, Maurer, McCurley, T. Okamoto, Preneel, Upton, and Van Oorschot. Also present as observers were Mickey Swick and Catherine Clark. A proxy for Vandewalle was held by Preneel. _______________________________________________________________________ Clark asked that a report from the publishing subcommittee be added to the agenda. ************************************************************************ Minutes of the 2 May 1999 meeting were approved. Motion by Preneel seconded by Berson carried 16 to 0. ************************************************************************ Benaloh asked if minutes should be less detailed and the consensus was that they should be. It was also agreed that Business Meeting minutes should record all votes taken there. ________________________________________________________________________ Crypto '99 General Chair Beaver reported on the conference. The important items of shrimp, strawberries, and t-shirts were all reported to be in order. Registrations as of 11 August were 497. Catering was ordered for 540. Early arrivals were housed in San Nicolas residence hall and others were housed in Anacapa hall. The conference budget was within expected bounds. Beaver suggested that it might be better to lower student registration fees than to continue the practice of supporting selected students. This year's registration included approximately 80 students of which approximately 20 received financial support. Beaver obtained financial support from CertCo to supplement the conference budget for student support. A discussion followed as to whether uniform fee reduction for all student registrants was preferable to the discriminatory relief now placed in the hands of the General Chair. No consensus was reached. However, Cachin suggested recommendations be made for future General Chairs and Beaver agreed to update the General Chair guidelines. Beaver then made a presentation of the Coat of Arms for Crypto '99 which is found on the conference folders. ________________________________________________________________________ Clark then reported on the status of membership services. He said that Y2K compliance is about to be completed, but that there are some problems with mailing lists for the Journal. Mickey Swick said that she is becoming comfortable in her new role of providing IACR membership services. Clark said that the proceedings CD will be available at the conference from Spinger-Verlag at the usual author discount price. Feigenbaum asked that there be clear phone, e-mail, and facsimile contacts for the membership office to facilitate conference registration and other membership service requests. Clark offered to organize a sub-committee meeting about managing the relationship with the Membership Secretary. ________________________________________________________________________ Hruby then reported on the final status of EuroCrypt '99. The final registration count was 390. There were 313 full-fee registrants (146 early and 167 late) and 64 student registrants (37 early and 27 late) [sic]. Revenues totaled $222,376 and expenses totaled $222,461 leaving a deficit of $85.80 (2788 Czech Koruna) which was covered by Dr. Hruby's employer. Hruby also delivered to the board 35 left over EuroCrypt '99 proceedings and the board agreed to try to sell these extra proceedings if possible. ________________________________________________________________________ Landrock then reported on proposals for upcoming EuroCrypts. The Board was told that it would see EuroCrypt 2001 proposals for Austria (Salzburg, Innsbruck, and Vienna) and for Sorrento, Italy. Other potential proposals including Poland, U.K. (Bath), Israel, Quebec, and the Netherlands were encouraged to delay until 2002. ________________________________________________________________________ McCurley then raised the issue of details for Crypto 2001 in Santa Barbara. ************************************************************************ After discussion of possible candidates for General Chair, a list of candidates was proposed and approved. Motion by Clark seconded by Benaloh carried 16 to 0 with 2 abstentions. ************************************************************************ [Dave Balenson has subsequently accepted the Board's offer and agreed to serve as Crypto 2001 General Chair.] ________________________________________________________________________ The Board then heard a proposal by Reihnard Posch to host EuroCrypt 2001 in Austria. The proposal consisted of three possible venues: Innsbruck, Salzburg, and Vienna. The Innsbruck site consisted of a conference center for the technical program and hotels within walking distance. Daily hotel costs ranged from approximately 1600 Austrian Schillings down to approximately 500 Austrian Schillings. The registration costs (not including the $80 membership dues) were expected to be approximately $450. The Salzburg site consisted of a large hotel that would house the technical program as well as most participants. Nearby secondary hotels were also available. Registration costs were expected to be roughly the same as for Innsbruck. The Vienna site consisted of housing the technical program at the Vienna Conference Center and lodging at various hotels 15-20 minutes away via public transit. The registrations costs (not including the $80 membership dues) were expected to be approximately $480. After some discussion of the alternatives, the Board and the presenter agreed on a preference for the Innsbruck site. ________________________________________________________________________ The Board then heard a proposal by Guiseppe Russo to host EuroCrypt 2001 in Sorrento, Italy. Sorrento is 52km south of Naples with regular transit connections and roughly a 3.5 hour bus trip (available twice daily) to and from Rome. The conference would be hosted in the Sorrento Palace Hotel with 410 rooms and an integrated conference center that can accommodate up to 1700. Room costs would be approximately $150 per day. The total expenses are estimated at 51,000,000 Italian Lira [sic] with an estimated attendance of 450 producing a cost of 1,052,000 Italian Lira or $569 per participant. Other nearby three star hotels have rooms available for about $97 per day. Nearby two star hotels have rooms available for about $81 per day. ________________________________________________________________________ ************************************************************************ After some discussion of the proposals, the Board approved a motion by Upton and seconded by Clark to select the Austrian bid with a preference for the Innsbruck site. The motion carried 16 to 0. ************************************************************************ ________________________________________________________________________ At this point, Beaver left the meeting to attend to conference business and gave his proxy to Berson. ________________________________________________________________________ Discussion then turned to Program Chairs for EuroCrypt 2001 and Crypto 2001. ************************************************************************ After discussion of possible candidates for Program Chair, two lists of candidates were proposed and approved. ************************************************************************ [Birgit Pfitzman has subsequently accepted the Board's offer and agreed to serve as EuroCrypt 2001 Program Chair and Joe Kilian has subsequently accepted the Board's offer and agreed to serve as Crypto 2001 Program Chair.] ________________________________________________________________________ Matsumoto, acting on behalf of AsiaCrypt Steering Committee Chair E. Okamoto, then reported on upcoming AsiaCrypt activities. The AsiaCrypt Steering Committee heard two proposals for AsiaCrypt 2001 -- one for Taipei, Taiwan and one for the Gold Coast of Australia. The Steering Committee recommended acceptance of the Taiwan proposal. ************************************************************************ A motion was made by Berson and seconded by Upton that the Steering Committee send its complete recommended proposal (including General Chair) to the Board by 15 September and that the Board respond to this proposal by 15 October. This motion was approved by acclamation. ************************************************************************ [In a supplemental Board meeting two days later (see below), the Board heard a detailed proposal from Prof. Wen-Guey Tzeng on the Taipei proposal. At the time of the writing of these minutes, the Board has not yet taken formal action on this proposal.] The Board then discussed possible Program Chairs for AsiaCrypt 2001. ************************************************************************ After discussion a Program Chair candidate was identified and approved by the Board. ************************************************************************ ________________________________________________________________________ Cachin and Biham then reported on their proposal for a cryptology pre-print server. Cachin suggested that pre-print servers are widespread and that there is no conflict between another pre-print server and anonymous submissions. Maurer asked about detailed procedures and persistence of papers on such a server. Feigenbaum asked about the window of utility during which such a server would be beneficial for any given research contribution. Clark asked about additional downsides. Berson asked if we could contract this service to an outside party. McCurley suggested that it might be possible to contract for this service through CORE. Biham asked if we should approach someone to contract for this service. Feigenbaum and others then expressed fears over giving an outside party control over our publications. Berson then asked for a straw poll on the desirability of an IACR pre-print server. Support for the idea was unanimous. Cachin asked for a commitment to proceed. Van Oorschot and Benaloh suggested soliciting help at the Business Meeting. A sub-committee was formed to study the issue consisting of Biham, Cachin, Feigenbaum, and McCurley. ________________________________________________________________________ Journal Editor Feigenbaum then gave a report on the state of the Journal. Feigenbaum described an opportunity from Springer-Verlag to increase the page count of the Journal for a modest additional fee and asked whether we should accept the offer given that the Journal's submission rate had declined. Brassard expressed a concern that the reduction in submissions might be due to a long backlog. Feigenbaum stated that the current backlog was approximately one year. Cachin suggested that recent improvements in the print quality of conference proceedings might have contributed to the decrease in Journal submissions. Biham suggested that we tell Spinger-Verlag that we do not want to increase the page count at present but may wish to do so in a year or more. It was generally agreed that there should be no immediate increase in the Journal's page count but that the situation should be watched and revisited if the backlog increases. ________________________________________________________________________ Treasurer Upton then presented a brief financial report stating that the IACR finances are healthy and recommending no increase in dues. ________________________________________________________________________ Upton then raised the issue of restricted donations to the IACR and asserted that the IACR doesn't really have any pressing needs for more funding. Clark offered to contact a potential donor and discuss the possibilities of sponsorship of one of a variety of possible new initiatives including a pre-print server, a student fellowship, and a lecture prize. ________________________________________________________________________ Preneel then raised the issue of an IACR Distinguished Lecture for AsiaCrypt 2000. He said that no nominations had been received. Tom Berson was suggested as a candidate and left the room. ************************************************************************ After discussion, the Board voted 16 to 0 to ask Tom Berson to deliver the IACR Distinguished Lecture at the inaugural AsiaCrypt. ************************************************************************ Berson then returned to the room and accepted the invitation. ________________________________________________________________________ Preneel then raised the issue of whether "best paper" awards should be given at IACR conferences. ************************************************************************ A motion was made by Preneel and seconded by Landrock that each Program Committee be authorized to award zero or more "outstanding paper" honors. The motion was defeated 7 to 8 with 1 abstention. ************************************************************************ ________________________________________________________________________ Franklin reported that the Elections Committee had not yet received any nominations. ________________________________________________________________________ Preneel then reported on EuroCrypt 2000. He said that logistics were progressing smoothly. There would be a single registration point for local hotels and that rooms could be held with a credit card or by pre-payment. Hotel rooms would be released one month prior to the conference. ________________________________________________________________________ Franklin then reported on Crypto 2000. He said there were no current issues and that there would be no apostrophe in the name. ________________________________________________________________________ Cachin then reported that the Newsletter was operating smoothly. He said that e-mail addresses of note included newsletter@iacr.org (which is forwarded to Cachin) and webmaster@iacr.org (which is forwarded to both Cachin and McCurley). The last electronic distribution of the Newsletter had only 27 member e-mails that were returned as invalid. ________________________________________________________________________ Clark then reported on membership activities. He said that, 2 years having elapsed since its inception, we were required to review our arrangement with the Secretariat. Clark and Upton agreed to conduct this review and report back at the EuroCrypt 2000 Board Meeting. McCurley then reported that Clark had resigned his position as Membership Secretary. ************************************************************************ McCurley then yielded his chair to Clark in order to offer a motion (seconded by Berson) that Don Beaver be appointed as Membership Secretary. The motion was approved 16 to 0. ************************************************************************ [Beaver subsequently accepted the Board's offer to fill this position.] ________________________________________________________________________ McCurley then reported on the status of electronic submissions. He stated that the current code (written and maintained with no budget) is experimental and that a permanent solution is desirable. [Note: Preneel subsequently offered the following information about the current electronic submissions code. - the software was written in Perl by Sam Rebelsky and SIGACT's Electronic Publishing Board (9 people, including Joe Kilian) see www.sigact.acm.org/sigact/electronic.html - for Eurocrypt '99, this software was ported to the ENS computers and apparently it worked fine (but please confirm this with Jacques Stern) - Eurocrypt 2000 will use the sigact.acm.org server - it has a.o. a backup facility on a remote site. - the software was called "experimental" when it was first used for Stoc'95. - the software was used for Focs, Stocs, Eurocrypt, Crypto, WDAG,... - while it still not commercial software, it seems to be working fine. A recent improvement is that it now accepts attachments. - the main problem seems to be that some non-Unix platforms seem to produce postscript that is hard to understand to ps printers (this is a euphemism). I suggested to Joe to switch to pdf, but it is clear that this cannot be done quickly. It seems that the Sigact solution is rather permanent, and that for the time being the Program Chairs have not complained too hard about it. But I agree that it would be nice if IACR could improve this software and run it on our own server.] ________________________________________________________________________ Feigenbaum then reported that Springer-Verlag is about to do a publicity blitz to seek more subscriptions and that they solicit any mailing lists we can offer to help them. ________________________________________________________________________ McCurley then asked for items to be placed on the agenda for the forthcoming Business Meeting. Agenda items included the recommendation for no increase in dues, announcements about future IACR conferences, solicitations for input and assistance regarding a possible pre-print server, and an election report to be delivered by Franklin. ________________________________________________________________________ Action items for McCurley were to extend offers for General and Program Chairs for EuroCrypt 2001 and Crypto 2001. An action item for Clark was to contact a potential donor about possible uses for a restricted-use donation. The pre-print sub-committee is scheduled to meet and report back at the EuroCrypt 2000 Board Meeting. ________________________________________________________________________ The meeting adjourned at 6:01pm. ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ Board of Directors Supplemental Meeting Crypto '99 Santa Barbara 17 August 1999 _______________________________________________________________________ The Board President called the meeting to order at 12:15m. Present were Beaver, Benaloh, Berson, Biham, Cachin, Clark, Diffie, Feigenbaum, Franklin, Hruby, Landrock, Maurer, McCurley, T. Okamoto, Preneel, Upton, and Van Oorschot. _______________________________________________________________________ A presentation was made by Prof. Wen-Guey Tzeng concerning details of the Taipei, Taiwan proposal for AsiaCrypt 2001. Discussion ensued regarding Program Chair candidates and the role of the AsiaCrypt Steering Committee. ************************************************************************ A motion regarding AsiaCrypt 2001 Program Chairs was offered and defeated. ************************************************************************ It was agreed that further discussions would be conducted by e-mail. Upon a motion by Diffie seconded by Landrock, the meeting was adjourned at 12:56pm. _______________________________________________________________________ Respectfully submitted Josh Benaloh IACR Secretary