Minutes of the Membership Meeting at Crypto 2002

Membership Meeting

Crypto 2002

Santa Barbara

21 August 2002

 

IACR President Clark convened the meeting at 17:15.

 

Clark informed attendees that unless they'd taken action otherwise, they
were members of the IACR for 2003.

 

Raffle tickets were distributed to those in attendance for a drawing for
a bottle of wine.

 

Clark presented the meeting agenda which consisted of information about
the IACR, its Board of Directors, its finances, its conferences and
workshops, the Journal of Cryptology, the Newsletter, current issues,
and a period of open discussion.

 

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 and the IACR Newsletter and
noted the web site at www.iacr.org.

 

Clark then introduced the members of the Board of Directors.

 

Clark next offered his thanks to Kevin McCurley for his six years as
IACR President, his work with the IACR web site, his production of a CD
of past IACR proceedings, and his many other contributions to the IACR
and its members.  Clark then presented McCurley with a plaque signed by
all of the past presidents of the IACR gratefully acknowledging his many
contributions.

 

Clark then presented a brief financial report noting that IACR finances
were stable with reserves of approximately $363,000 (approximately
$350,000 at the end of 2001).  He added that all three IACR conferences
in 2001 had returned modest surpluses and that the 2002 conferences were
on track.  He also noted that attendance at Crypto had decreased by
approximately 10% which was less of a drop than had been suffered by
many other conferences in Computer Science and related fields.

 

Clark then announced the decision by the Board to raise IACR annual dues
from $80 for regular members and $40 for student members to $88 for
regular members and $44 for student members.

 

Clark then expressed thanks to Crypto 2002 General Chair Rebecca Wright
and Program Chair Moti Yung and presented them plaques of appreciation.
He also specifically thanked Wright for her extraordinary efforts in
arranging for an IACR softball game and ensuring that the steps to the
beach were rebuilt.

 

Clark then enumerated upcoming IACR conferences and workshops as
follows.

 

Asiacrypt 2002    Queenstown, New Zealand       December 1-5

PKC 2003          Miami, Florida                January 6-8

FSE 2003          Lund, Sweden                  February 24-26

Eurocrypt 2003    Warsaw, Poland                May 4-8

Crypto 2003       Santa Barbara                 August 17-21

Asiacrypt 2003    Taipei, Taiwan                December 7-11*

*[The Asiacrypt 2003 dates have been amended to November 30 - December
4.]

 

Asiacrypt 2002 General Chair Henry Wolfe invited attendees to the
conference noting that there had been 175 papers submitted.

 

PKC 2002 General Chair Mike Burmester invited attendees to the workshop
and solicited sponsors.

 

It was also noted that as a newly IACR-sponsored workshop, PKC would
afford attendees their first opportunity to pay their 2004 IACR
membership dues.

 

Clark then solicited proposals to host conferences and workshops in
2005.

 

Clark next reported on the Journal of Cryptology noting that the
Editor-in-Chief position was in the process of being passed from
Feigenbaum to Maurer.  He noted that the Journal of Cryptology is the
premier journal in the field and that roughly 75% of the IACR membership
dues are used to pay for subscriptions to the Journal.  He then
solicited high-quality submissions for the Journal.

 

Clark then reported on the Newsletter noting that Cachin had been
re-appointed as Editor.  He said that a flat text version was
distributed by email thrice annually and that a richer version was
available on the IACR web site.  He asked that items of interest be sent
to "[email protected]".

 

Clark then asked for a straw poll as to whether members preferred that
the entire Newsletter be sent by email of that a notification and
pointer be sent instead.  A large majority seemed to prefer the
notification and pointer option.

 

Clark then reported on the 2002 election noting that three board
positions were being vacated.  He introduced the Nomination and Election
Committee consisting of Benaloh, Desmedt, and Rose and encouraged
interested people to speak with a member of the Committee.

 

Clark then described the IACR Fellows designation that had been put
forward by Feigenbaum.  He said that the proposal included an amendment
to the IACR Bylaws that would be placed on the fall ballot.

 

Clark next announced the appointment of Hilarie Orman to the role of
IACR Archivist and said that past IACR publications were being
catalogued in co-operation with Springer-Verlag.

 

Clark then turned to the issue of electronic registration for IACR
conferences.  He said that the Board had appointed an Information
Technology Strategy Committee and hoped to have electronic registration
in place for Crypto 2003.

 

Clark then described the LINK access to publications provided by
Spinger-Verlag.  He noted the URLs of link.springer-ny.com and
link.springer.de and provided a suitable user name and password for
access.  He then gave a brief demonstration of the service and noted
that the earliest available entries were all Cryptology-related.  He
said that the access password would be emailed to IACR members and
agreed to explore with Springer-Verlag the possibility of including
earlier volumes of the Journal of Cryptology.

 

________________________________________________________________________

 

At 17:43 Clark opened the floor for discussion from the membership.

________________________________________________________________________

 

 

Rich Schroeppel asked if a referendum mechanism could be added to the
IACR Bylaws and was told that such a mechanism was already in place.

 

A member suggested parallel sessions to enable the acceptance of more
papers while shortening the length of the conference.  McCurley asked
for a show of hands regarding the possibility of parallel sessions, and
a strong majority expressed a desire to not have parallel sessions.

 

Niels Ferguson suggested shortening talks to enable acceptance of more
papers.  Clark responded that he likes the current length of talks.

 

Gideon Yuval suggested that session chairs be more forceful about
enforcing the schedule.

 

Dan Bernstein asked that the Springer-Verlag LINK password stay
constant, and Clark responded that this was managed by Springer-Verlag.

 

Joe Kilian expressed discomfort with the proposed change to the Bylaws
without an opportunity for open debate.  He then asked if an on-line
discussion mechanism could be made available.  Clark responded that the
IACR depends upon volunteers and sought suggestions, and Feigenbaum
asked for a volunteer to act as a moderator for an on-line discussion.

 

Mike Burmester expressed the view that the cost of the Journal of
Cryptology was high and asked why all members had to pay for it.  Clark
responded that the Journal is the premier scientific publication in its
field and expressed concern about raising costs for those who elect to
subscribe.  Langford noted that the cost was approximately $60 per year.
Burmester said that he wanted Springer-Verlag to take commercial
responsibility for the Journal, and Feigenbaum responded that it does.
Both Clark and Jimmy Upton reported that subscribing directly to the
Journal is far more expensive than being an IACR member.

 

Victor Miller asked about the possibility of institutional memberships
in the IACR.  Clark responded that institutional memberships had been
discontinued about 6-7 years ago because of the administrative burden.

 

A member asked if it would be possible to avoid presentation of rejected
papers at the rump session.  Clark responded that this was up to the
rump session chair.  McCurley suggested discouraging conference
announcements at the rump session, while another member suggested that
rejected papers were more valuable at the rump session than accepted
papers.

 

A drawing was then held to raffle off a bottle of wine.

________________________________________________________________________

 

The Membership meeting was then adjourned at 18:00.

________________________________________________________________________

 

 

 

Respectfully submitted

Josh Benaloh

IACR Secretary