We are pleased to bring you this issue of Cipher!

As Paul Syverson noted in his last letter as editor, I am succeeding Paul as editor of Cipher. I am very pleased to have the opportunity to serve our community in this capacity.

I've been an avid fan of Cipher for many years and have always been impressed with the quality and timeliness of its content. When Paul and Avi Rubin succeeded Carl Landwehr, they wrote in their inaugural issue that their primary objective was to maintain the high standards set by Carl. I feel the same way today. It’s my hope that you will continue to find the articles and reviews in Cipher to be of value. It’s also my hope that you will occasionally feel the urge to contribute. Cipher is our community newsletter; it is written by us and for us. We all see different parts of the (very large) Information Assurance mosaic and Cipher provides us with a great common forum to share news and views. Towards that end, I’d like to encourage you to consider authoring a short conference or workshop review. I will try to heed my own call and share information about recent activity in academia on emerging information assurance curricula, standards, and certification.

I want to thank Paul for his help in putting this issue together. I also want to thank Mary Ellen Zurko, Bob Bruen, Jonathan Byron, Hilarie Orman, Tom Berson, and Anish Mathuria for their contributions, assistance, and advice. When I put out the "call for contributions", each of these folks stepped forward to see how they could help.

If you have suggestions for Cipher, please send me a note. Or better yet, let’s chat in Oakland May 14-17...you have registered for S&P 2000, haven’t you?

Best Regards,

Jim Davis