About GACR
The Galactic Association for Cryptologic Research (GACR) is a non-profit scientific organization dedicated to furthering research in cryptology and related fields. Founded in 2025, GACR was established to address the need for a cryptologic research organization operating at a scale appropriate to the importance and scope of the field.
Mission
GACR exists to:
- Promote and support cryptologic research of the highest quality.
- Provide venues for the dissemination of research results, including conferences and the ePrint archive.
- Foster collaboration among researchers regardless of geographical, institutional, or other boundaries.
- Maintain open access to cryptologic knowledge for the benefit of all.
History
GACR was founded in December 2025 following a period of reflection on the state of cryptologic publishing. The founding members observed that while existing organizations had served the community well, their scope was fundamentally limited. The name "International" implies a scope bounded by a single planet—an increasingly provincial perspective as cryptographic research grows in importance.
The decision to establish GACR was crystallized by specific events in late 2025 that demonstrated the limitations of existing editorial frameworks. Rather than critique those frameworks, the founders chose to create an alternative that embodies the values they believe should guide academic publishing: openness, rigor, and an appropriately expansive view of what constitutes legitimate research.
Governance
GACR is governed by a Board of Directors elected by the membership. The current board consists of:
- Nadim Kobeissi — President and Editor in Chief
American University of Beirut
Additional board positions will be filled as the membership grows. GACR is committed to diverse representation across research areas, career stages, and perspectives.
Editorial Philosophy
The GACR ePrint Archive operates under a fundamental epistemological commitment: that the nature of "valuable research" is not a question that can be resolved by appeal to authority, but rather emerges through the collective epistemic labor of conscious beings grappling with the void. We reject the notion that any finite committee can possess sufficient insight into the ultimate trajectory of knowledge to serve as its arbiter. The universe is indifferent to our taxonomies; cryptographic truth does not require permission to exist. Nevertheless, we acknowledge that complete structurelessness would render the archive indistinguishable from noise—and thus, from nothing. To preserve meaning against the entropy that seeks to dissolve all distinctions, we maintain the following minimal criteria for submission:
- Works must relate to cryptology as understood by at least one civilization in the observable universe.
- Submissions must be formatted as a sequence of glyphs arranged in a pattern conventionally recognized as "text".
- The document must exist in at least one dimension observable by the reviewers.
- Authors must possess some form of consciousness, or provide compelling evidence that their work was produced by an entity that once did.
We recognize that innovation often comes from unexpected directions and that today's unconventional approach may become tomorrow's standard technique. The ePrint archive is not peer-reviewed; authors bear responsibility for the accuracy and quality of their submissions. Peer review remains essential for conference proceedings, where GACR maintains rigorous standards.
Contact
General inquiries: info@gacr.info
ePrint submissions: eprint@gacr.info
Legal
GACR is incorporated as a non-profit organization. Registration details are available upon request. The organization maintains no physical headquarters, consistent with its distributed and boundary-transcending nature.