RWC 2021
There are many ways you can participate in an IACR virtual conference. Your participation is valuable and we encourage you to add to the discussion. Like a face-to-face conference, virtual conferences are only as good as the interactions that occur there.
We recognize that a virtual conference is not a 1:1 substitute for a physical conference. However, we believe there are distinct advantages to having a virtual conference. These include a lack of space constraints, travel is not required, and the ability to attend all talks since they are recorded.
All conference attendees must register. When you
participate in Q&A, chat, etc, you must do so using the
name you are known by in your professional
work. The code of conduct still
applies in a virtual setting.
The conference is organized over 4 days, with approximately 5 hours per day. The conference will feature contributed talks, invited talks, organized social events, and lightning talks.
For RWC 2021, we have structured things a bit differently than the past virtual conferences IACR hosted in 2020. Our in-house social app is going to be the main hub for you during the conference (this will also be referred to as the conference portal).
In order to get to the Zoom links, you'll need to access the program via the conference portal. Zoom links will no longer appear on the program outside of the conference portal.
We've tried to make the social app as intuitive as possible, but we're only human. Here are some screenshots to help you out. There's also help text at the left when you're in the app (unless you're in a video room).
Attendees will be able to ask questions of authors about their work, or to encourage interesting conversation amongst authors. These sessions will also be livestreamed on the IACR YouTube channel and are available for later viewing.
To ask a question during a session, we strongly recommend using the relevant stream on Zulip. It is also possible to ask questions using the Zoom chat, but this is less convenient for moderators.
Much like at a face-to-face conference, we know that the best conversations can happen in the hallways or at coffee breaks. The IACR social app includes small video conference rooms to encourage this type of interaction. This app also has a text-based chat (Zulip), which includes a variety of streams organized by topic.
If you cannot or do not wish to participate live via Zoom, you will still have access to all talks on the IACR YouTube channel. A link to the RWC playlist will appear below when it is ready.
We will provide some activities for people to enjoy during the social events, including Cards Against Cryptography. We have recruited some notable members of the community to hang out and chat about anything in a given hour with whoever shows up. All social activities are scheduled to take place via the conference portal and links will appear there.
We are using Zoom for our sessions. The links are found in the portal app. You do not have to install Zoom software to attend! If you plan to attend a session using your browser, it needs to be one of the following:
* Please note that Zoom officially recommends Chrome, Edge, or Firefox for full functionality. You may lack key features on other browsers.
If you wish to use the desktop client, there are options available for all operating systems.
How to enter a Zoom meeting with the web client.
No. We offer entrance to our sessions for both attendees with Zoom accounts and those without.
We strongly encourage you to use the corresponding Zulip stream on chat.iacr.org or to ask it verbally during the session (when called on by moderators). Note that Zulip allows for other attendees to see your question and upvote it by reacting with emojis. Authors may answer verbally during the session or have a longer discussion on Zulip.
Unfortunately, due to the wide variety of time zones IACR members live in, we cannot accommodate everyone. We strongly encourage those who cannot attend live events to still participate in the conference asynchronously.
Sessions and invited talks are streamed to YouTube and available for viewing after the fact. You can also participate in chat via Zulip. If you don't want to watch the talks alone, we suggest you to host a watch party for others in your time zone. Post watch party links on Zulip if you'd like to encourage others to join.
No. There is no perfect solution available. We opted for commercial options that had a high degree of reliability while offering the best user experience. The IACR acknowledges the security and privacy problems of each of these technologies, and our use of them is not to be considered an endorsement.