Call for Contributions
	
  SHARCS -- Special-Purpose Hardware for Attacking Cryptographic Systems
                         www.sharcs.org

			February 24 -25, 2005, Paris 


The SHARCS Workshop is the first open meeting ever devoted entirely to
the challenging subject of special-purpose cryptanalytical machines. 

Much of the earlier work in this area was done on key searches for
symmetric-key algorithms, with a particular emphasis on attacks
against DES. More recently there has been interest in hardware
architectures for sieving methods for attacking the RSA
scheme. However, it seems that much work remains to be done
including, for instance, special purpose hardware crackers for:

   * index calculus algorithms
   * elliptic curve based schemes
   * lattice based schemes
   * specific block and stream ciphers   

In addition to algorithmic issues, it is also the workshop's goal to make
advances on implementational issues such as:

   * optical devices for cryptanalysis
   * analog computers for cryptanalysis
   * digital architecture for cryptanalysis

The ultimate objective of SHARCS is to determine whether 
special purpose hardware poses a real threat for today's cryptographic 
algorithms, and whether there are advantages over software-based attacks. 
Since this is an intrinsically interdisciplinary subject, it is hoped that
the workshop can bring together researchers with different backgrounds
for discussing and advancing this exciting field.

The workshop will consist of invited keynote presentations and some
contributed presentations. We welcome submissions of extended
abstracts (at least 3 pages.) We would like to stress that we do *not*
aim at receiving contributions on side channel attacks nor on attacks
carried out on conventional computer platforms with conventional
attack algorithms. Furthermore, at this point we exclude quantum
cryptologic devices.  Theoretical papers analyzing the feasibility and
costs of attacks using specialized hardware are, however, very much
welcomed.

For more information on the workshop visit: www.sharcs.org
                        
The workshop is organized by ECRYPT, the European Network of
Excellence in Cryptography (www.ecrypt.eu.org). The workshop is an
activity of ECRYPT's VAMPIRE - Virtual Application and Implementation
Research Lab.

There will be no formal proceedings, but a handout with abstracts will be
provided to all participants. (This avoids submissions to SHARCS from
conflicting with submissions to forthcoming conferences with
proceedings).

Important dates:
	January 3, 2005:         submission of abstracts
	January 24, 2005:        notification of acceptance or rejection
	February 10, 2005:       revised version of accepted papers
	February 24 & 25, 2005:  SHARCS workshop

The dates were chosen to have SHARCS immediately after Fast Software
Encryption (FSE) 2005, which runs from February 21-23. Most likely,
SHARCS will be held in ENSTA, the same location that is used for FSE.

The submission should start with a title, a list of the authors
together with their affiliations and a short abstract describing the
content of the paper. This should be followed by an extended abstract
of at least 3 and at most 12 pages. The authors of accepted papers
must guarantee to present their paper at the workshop.


To submit send your contribution to

      submit@sharcs.org

no later than January 3, 2005, in ps or pdf format. You should 
receive an acknowledgment of submission no later than one day 
after submission.


Program Committee: 

	* Gerhard Frey (Essen)			* Elisabeth Oswald (Graz)
	* Tanja Lange (Bochum)			* Christof Paar	(Bochum)   
	* Arjen Lenstra	(Lucent/Eindhoven)	* Nigel Smart (Bristol)


So far the following speakers have confirmed giving invited talks:

	* Dan Bernstein		   * Adi Shamir
	* Arjen Lenstra		   * Eran Tromer
	* Jean-Jacques Quisquater  * Mike Wiener 	
	* Tony Sale