Minutes of the Membership Meeting at Crypto 2001
Membership Meeting Crypto 2001 Santa Barbara 22 Aug 2001 IACR President McCurley began the meeting at 16:35. McCurley began by expressing his desire for a brief meeting to allow sufficient time to attend the beach barbeque. He then gave a brief history of the IACR, founded in 1983, and noted that Crypto attendees were members of the IACR unless they had taken explicit action to not become members. McCurley described the mission of the IACR as advancing the theory and practice of cryptology and related fields, and he described its primary products as the Eurocrypt, Crypto, and Asiacrypt conferences, the Journal of Cryptology, and the Newsletter. McCurley then introduced the members of the IACR Board of Directors and described the role of the Board as including the setting of policies and guidelines for the organization and its activities and selection of conference venues along with conference and program chairs. He then described some recent issues that have occupied the Board's attention including IACR sponsorship of workshops, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, and IACR copyright ownership. McCurley then described the IACR Distinguished Lecturer as an honor recognizing long-standing contributions by a member of the field and announced that David Chaum would be giving the IACR Distinguished Lecture at Crypto in August of 2002. McCurley then described the FSE workshop which had recently gained the status of an IACR sponsored workshop. He said that this action had been approved by the IACR Board and that the IACR would accept responsibility starting in 2002. He added that the FSE Steering Committee would run the FSE workshop and that copyrights of papers presented at the workshop would be given to the IACR. ____________________________________________________________________ Election Committee Chair Berson then reported on the forthcoming IACR elections. He noted that the terms of all four of the IACR Officers and three of the IACR Directors would be expiring at the end of the year and that elections would be held to fill all of these positions for three-year terms. He identified Biham, Diffie, and Landrock as the Directors whose terms were expiring and also identified the Election Committee consisting of himself, Yvo Desmedt, and Rebecca Wright. Berson described how any IACR member can nominate any other member and referred interested persons to http://www.iacr.org for nomination materials which needed to be returned by September 16. He then described the process whereby ballots are sent to members with instructions to place the ballot into an inner envelope which is in turn placed into an outer envelop for mailing to the Returning Officer. Berson then identified Desmedt as the Returning Officer who it was felt, by virtue of his status as a resident of the state of Florida, was in a unique position to ensure fair counting of the ballots. McCurley then noted that several Board positions would be open including the position of IACR President. ____________________________________________________________________ McCurley then noted that the IACR is a volunteer organization and presented plaques in gratitude to Crypto 2001 General Chair David Balenson and Crypto 2001 Program Chair Joe Kilian for their efforts in making the conference a success. Applause was given by the audience. ____________________________________________________________________ Program Chair Kilian then presented statistics on the conference program. He said that there had been 156 submissions of which 34 had been accepted (although one was subsequently withdrawn). This meant that 78% of the submissions were rejected. The breakdown of submissions by domain was given as follows. .com 37 .edu 32 .fr 15 .jp 10 .kr 9 .tw 7 .au 6 .il 5 .de 5 .net 4 .ch 4 .uk 4 .in 3 .ca 3 .se 3 .org 2 .dk 2 .yu 1 .sg 1 .mx 1 .ie 1 .gov 1 .es 1 .be 1 Kilian gave the following breakdown of reasons for acceptances by the Program Committee. "10: Snowed by complicated mathematics." "20: Masterful citation of PC members." "4: No spelling mistakes." He then gave the following breakdown of reasons for rejections by the Program Committee. "15: Didn't understand brilliance of paper." "5: Did understand, was jealous." "102: Never did get a chance to read 65-156." Kilian then noted that 10 out of 37 ".com" submissions were accepted for a rate of 27% while only 8 out of 32 ".edu" submissions were accepted for a rate of 25%. Next, Kilian observed that 40% of papers citing committee members Ran Canetti and Stuart Haber were accepted while all papers mentioning any of six other committee members were rejected. Kilian added that citation of other notable names had the following results on acceptance rates. Wigderson 24.5% Rabin 14.6% Micali 10.5% Goldreich 9.5% Goldwasser 8.9% Shamir 2.4% Kilian then noted that there was a +.16 correlation between size of submitted ".ps" files and acceptance rates and that only 10% of papers prepared using Microsoft Word were accepted. Finally he noted variations in acceptance rates for papers using each of the following terms. Rigorous +35 Paradigm +15.8 Practical +0.29 Correct +0.91 Fast -2 Whit Diffie asked if stylistic recognition software was run, and Kilian responded that it had revealed that most of the papers were written by Sir Francis Bacon. ____________________________________________________________________ General Chair Balenson then reported on details for Crypto 2001 which he dubbed as "the 1st Crypto in the true 21st Century". He said that the unofficial totals included 497 registrants of which 105 (21%) were students, 85 (17%) had attended Eurocrypt, and 394 (79%) had registered early. Balenson then gave a breakdown of the 32 countries from which participants had registered as follows. Argentina 3 Australia 7 Belgium 6 Brazil 2 Canada 23 China 3 Czech Repub. 4 Denmark 4 Finland 5 France 39 Germany 26 Hungary 1 Ireland 2 Israel 14 Italy 4 Japan 31 Korea 43 New Zealand 2 Norway 1 Romania 4 Russia 1 Saudi Arabia 1 Singapore 3 S. Africa 2 Spain 1 Sweden 3 Switzerland 14 Taiwan 4 The Nether. 7 Turkey 1 U.K. 16 U.S.A. 220 Balenson then noted how attendance compared to recent years with the following recent attendance figures. 1997 506 1998 529 1999 509 2000 502 2001 497 Balenson then quoted the following figures for quantities of food consumed. 210 lbs. of shrimp 250 doz. chocolate strawberries 249 doz. strawberries 200 rolls / 1600 pieces of sushi 198 six packs of beer 264 bottles of wine ??? bottles of tequila (TBD) Finally, Balenson suggested the following possible explanations for a "bug" that had been discovered on the conference T-Shirts. "It was a test! (Scott Fluhrer wins the prize)" "It represents a noisy channel" "The channel was under attack" "It's a quantum bit" "I copied it from the 1st edition of a well known book" Balenson concluded by thanking the IACR Board and especially Susan Langford; former General Chairs Matt Franklin and Don Beaver; his employer NAI Labs, the security research division of PGP Security, a Network Associates Business; Joe Kilian, the Program Chair, and the Program Committee; and UCSB conference services (Sally Vito), catering services (Eriko Macdonald), and Campbell Hall technicians (J.O. and team). ____________________________________________________________________ Treasurer Langford then gave a report on the finances of the IACR. She presented a bar graph displaying the disbursements of funds collected from the 2000 Eurocrypt, Crypto, and Asiacrypt conferences. The total funds collected were seen to be approximately $200,000 for Eurocrypt, slightly more for Crypto, and approximately $100,000 for Asiacrypt. In all cases, the overwhelming majority of funds collected were spent on the conferences themselves with smaller amounts being spent on IACR dues, used to fund the IACR Secretariat, and returned to the IACR as surplus. Langford noted that the IACR did not seek to make "profits" from conferences. Langford then presented a graph displaying the cash reserves of the IACR which were estimated at $350,000 as of December 31, 2000. The graph showed approximately $200,000 held in CDs, roughly half that amount in a checking account, and a similar amount in a market rate account. Langford then presented a pie chart displaying how the IACR dues money is spent. These funds were shown to be spent 75% on the Journal of Cryptology, 12% on IACR Secretariat services, and 13% on miscellaneous expenses. The floor was then opened for questions from the membership, and it was asked whether it was possible that credit cards not be billed for registration charges until the beginning of the conference. Langford noted that many conference expenses had to be paid in advance of the start of the conference and that as of Asiacrypt 2001, credit cards would be charged at time of receipt or shortly thereafter. It was asked if two separate charges could be made -- one at time of receipt and another at the beginning of the conference, and Langford responded that the IACR did not have the resources to do this. It was suggested that as many as 25% of IACR attempts to bill credit cards were refused. It was also asked whether the IACR was considering accepting the euro at future conferences, and Langford responded that this was being looked into. ____________________________________________________________________ Journal of Cryptology Editor-in-Chief Feigenbaum then reported on the status of the Journal. She began by noting the Journal's web page at http://www.iacr.org/jofc/ and then announced that Don Beaver had joined the Editorial Board. Feigenbaum then described the journal's backlog -- those papers that had been accepted but not yet appeared -- as being three issues. Feigenbaum then announced that Ueli Maurer had been appointed as the new Editor-in-Chief and that the two would jointly hold the position until 2003 at which point Maurer would hold it alone. Feigenbaum then solicited papers and referees for the journal. She also announced that the SCI indexing service had informed her that the Journal of Cryptology citation rate has been increasing and that they wanted to feature this information. Feigenbaum asked that any new submissions to the Journal be sent to Maurer as of January 2002. Feigenbaum then noted that the Digital Millennium Copyright Act may affect the Journal as well as other aspects of the IACR and solicited relevant information. An audience member asked if there was a problem with distribution of Volume 14 Issue Number 3, and Feigenbaum responded that she knew of no problem and suggested contacting the Membership Secretary to verify addressing. McCurley then thanked Feigenbaum for her efforts and general applause was given. ____________________________________________________________________ IACR Newsletter Editor Cachin then reported on the status of the Newsletter. He described the Newsletter as being distributed electronically thrice annually and as also being available at http://www.iacr.org. He indicated that it included book reviews, conference announcements, and job advertisements. He then announced the deadline for the next Newsletter as September 30, 2001 and asked that items be submitted to [email protected]. An audience member asked if the Newsletter was available off-line, and Cachin asked that such requests be sent to him directly. Cachin then reported on the ePrint Archive at http://eprint.iacr.org/ which he maintains along with Mihir Bellare and Bennet Yee. He said that refereeing is minimal and items are approved by the editor. He added that submissions, updates, annotations, and deletions can all be accomplished through an automated interface. ____________________________________________________________________ McCurley then reported on upcoming IACR conferences and sponsored workshops. Asiacrypt 2001 was scheduled for 9-13 December 2001 on the Gold Coast of Australia. Ed Dawson was the General Chair and Colin Boyd was the Program Chair. Dawson provided details on the conference. He described the Gold Coast as just south of Brisbane with many attractions and local airports. He gave the venue as Somerset College which he described as providing athletic facilities and being approximately fifteen minutes from the Gold Coast. Dawson then described the accommodations on the Gold Coast and the planned Tuesday afternoon tour of a local rain forest. He added that the hotels were a five-minute walk from the beach. Dawson listed the price of the Concorde Hotel at AUS$114 (or approximately US$60) and the price of the Grand Mercure Hotel at AUS$130. He said that registration forms should be sent within four weeks and reminded attendees that December is the summer in Australia with expected temperatures of 28-34 degrees Centigrade and that hats should be worn. ____________________________________________________________________ McCurley then continued his report on upcoming IACR conferences and sponsored workshops. Eurocrypt 2002 is scheduled for April 28 - May 2, 2002 in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Berry Schoenmakers is the General Chair and Lars Knudsen is the Program Chair. Crypto 2002 is scheduled for 18-22 August 2002 in Santa Barbara, California. Rebecca Wright is the General Chair and Moti Yung is the Program Chair. Asiacrypt 2002 is scheduled for 1-5 December 2002 in Queenstown, New Zealand. Henry B. Wolfe is the General Chair and Yulian Zheng is the Program Chair. The next FSE Workshop was scheduled for 4-6 February 2002 in Leuven, Belgium. Matt Landrock was the General Chair and Joan Daemen and Vincent Rijmen were Program Co-chairs. Eurocrypt 2003 will be in Warsaw, Poland with dates in early May to be confirmed. Jerzy Gawinecki is the General Chair and Eli Biham is the Program Chair. Crypto 2003 will be in Santa Barbara, California with dates in August to be confirmed. Greg Rose is the General Chair and Dan Boneh is the Program Chair. ____________________________________________________________________ McCurley then reported on IACR Membership Services. He noted that Don Beaver is the Membership Secretary and that services are provided by the University of California. He suggested contacting membership services via email at [email protected] to update personal data such as addresses, URLs, and email addresses. He then described the Secretariat's role in managing registration for IACR conferences and mailing of the Journal of Cryptology. ____________________________________________________________________ McCurley then took a straw poll of the audience on the amount of introductory material in technical presentations. Approximately eight audience members responded that the amount was too much, a very large portion of members responded that the amount was about right, and approximately ten members responded that the amount was too little. ____________________________________________________________________ McCurley then opened the floor for other business at 17:32. Whit Diffie announced his opinion that there was too much deadwood on the Board of Directors and that he would therefore not seek re-election. Applause was given in thanks to his service to the IACR. Rich Schroeppel inquired about electronic access to IACR materials. Don Beaver responded that the Springer-Verlag "LINK" service was slowly adding the Journal of Cryptology and IACR proceedings and noted that one must accept cookies to access this service. Schroeppel suggested that the IACR should hold the copyrights, and McCurley responded that it already does. Schroeppel asked about seeking a service to host electronic forms of IACR materials, and McCurley responded that the IACR has been working with Springer-Verlag on electronic publishing and that the situation is being monitored. Joan Feigenbaum offered her thanks to Kevin McCurley for his service to the IACR, and applause was given by the audience. Stuart Haber then asked the audience for guidance on the rump session. Many expressed a desire for the enforcement of time limits while a smaller number of members supported a limit on the number of slides. Paul Kocher suggested that one-page "negative" rump talks be included in the conference proceedings, and McCurley responded that the structure is up to the discretion of the Program Chair and reminded members that the ePrint Archive could be used. Haber then invited rump speakers to send links to their work for publication on a web site. Joan Feigenbaum then asked if the Journal of Cryptology should include short notes and suggested that those who were interested should contact Ueli Maurer. David Balenson asked if short notes would also take nine months to be published, and Feigenbaum responded that it probably would not. John Kelly suggested rump session speaker guidelines, and McCurley expressed his agreement. Whit Diffie claimed success with his "synchronous" rump session approach. A member then suggested that more questions during and after technical talks would be nice. Tom Berson responded that this was affected by both the size of the room and other factors and suggested that Session Chairs should pause longer for questions and have their own questions prepared in advance. A member offered a demonstration of how the DMCA can be used to make proceedings difficult to copy by displaying an inverted copy which he described as a copy protection mechanism. He then offered to perform an unlocking service for members. McCurley asked about quality control for the proceedings, and Andy Clark noted that six copies of the proceedings had been returned. Brian Snow then offered his thanks to Stuart Haber for his efforts who then received general applause. Whit Diffie then offered his opinion that the field has become so diverse that it is difficult to learn and suggested that the availability of more background material would be helpful. Niels Ferguson added his view that many presentations are targeted to a narrow audience. Yvo Desmedt suggested that "clickable" references be included. Jon Graff suggested that proceedings be sent to attendees a week before conferences or, in the alternative, that abstracts be posted in advance. McCurley responded that Springer-Verlag had the abstracts posted the previous week. Greg Rose suggested that talks sometimes followed a pattern of being two-thirds introduction and the other third being too shallow and asked that speakers tell the audience their results. ____________________________________________________________________ The Membership Meeting was then adjourned at 17:52. ____________________________________________________________________ Respectfully submitted Josh Benaloh IACR Secretary
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