Progress in Cryptology —INDOCRYPT 2000: First International Conference in Cryptology in India Calcutta, India, December 10–13, 2000 Proceedings

The field of Cryptology witnessed a revolution in the late seventies. Since then it has been expanded into an important and exciting area of research. Over the last two decades, India neither participated actively nor did it contribute sig­ nificantly towards the development in this field. However, recently a number of active research groups engaged in important research and developmental work have crystalized in different parts of India. As a result, their interaction with the international crypto community has become necessary. With this backdrop, it was proposed that a conference on cryptology - INDOCRYPT, be organized for the first time in India. The Indian Statistical Institute was instrumental in hosting this conference. INDOCRYPT has generated a large amount of enthu­ siasm amongst the Indians as well as the International crypto communities. An INDOCRYPT steering committee has been formed and the committee has plans to make INDOCRYPT an annual event. For INDOCRYPT 2000, the program committee considered a total of 54 pa­ pers and out of these 25 were selected for presentation. The conference program also included two invited lectures by Prof. Adi Shamir and Prof. Eli Biham. These proceedings include the revised versions of the 25 papers accepted by the program committee. These papers were selected from all the submissions based on originality, quality and relevance to the field of Cryptology. Revisions were not checked and the authors bear the full responsibility for the contents of the papers in these proceedings.