Thanks for your patience in awaiting this issue, which is much later than I would have wished. I am pleased to be able to send you comprehensive coverage of this year's IEEE Security and Privacy Symposium, courtesy of Mary Ellen Zurko and Josh Guttman. And Bob Bruen returns with another fine book review. Hilarie Orman and Jim Davis have recently updated Cipher's calendar and call for paper web pages, as reflected in those sections, and I located many conference and journal papers for the Reader's Guide.

Symposium attendance was up significantly this year, thanks to the efforts of Chair Steve Kent, Vice-Chair Mike Reiter, program Co-chairs George Dinolt and Paul Karger, the program committee, and most of all, to the authors and participants. Whether you were able to attend or not, I think you will enjoy the account of the Symposium this issue provides.

In order not to delay the issue further (and to avoid making it longer than it is already) I have not attempted select the most relevant news items from the many that have accumulated in my files since the last issue.

For similar reasons, I've not updated the sections for new reports available on the Web and Interesting Links. I hope to bring out another issue within a month that will cover more current news. As always, your contributions are welcome.

Carl Landwehr
Editor, Cipher