[tptacek]

This prize is awarded at the Real World Crypto conference, which has become a pretty big deal. RWC is unlike normal academic crypto conferences in that it hosts practical engineering work and case studies from people deploying crypto --- but the attendance list includes many leading people in the academic field.

Last year's Levchin winners were Phil Rogaway (a cryptographer of fame comparable to that of Joan Daemen) and the miTLS team (which discovered the Triple Handshake, SMACK, FREAK, Logjam, and SLOTH TLS attacks).

[mikecb]

For those of us unaware, the Levchin the prize is named after is famous for...?

[tptacek]

... is Max Levchin, of Paypal fame.

[mikecb]

for some reason I thought there would be more story.

[tptacek]

He likes cryptography and once had dinner with Dan Boneh and they decided to start an award for crypto contributions.

I think? that's the whole story.

[jtdowney]

Dan went into a little more of the backstory last year during the first awarding of the Levchin prizes. If I recall correctly, he and Max had been long time acquaintances and Dan even advised Max while he was working on some of the early PayPal technology. Max told a story about Dan leaving his own birthday party to help Max debug a CSPRNG.

[wolf550e]

Who is on the committee that decides who gets the prize?

[tptacek]

Dan Boneh, Aggelos Kiayias, Brian LaMacchia, Kenny Paterson, Tom Ristenpart, Tom Shrimpton, and Nigel Smart.

(A pretty intense group).