2019 Levchin Prize for Real-World Cryptography

Cryptography has been a passion of mine for decades, and an important part of my work in computer science and technology. Cryptographically secure storage and transmission of information, be it a personal email or a credit card number, is foundational to growth and development of academic and commercial technology applications in all of our lives. Several years ago, I made a commitment to supporting this field by recognizing important contributors to practical, applicable cryptographic innovation annually. The Levchin Prize for Real World Cryptography was created to highlight the importance of applied, real-world cryptography and its applications in digital security.

The Real-World Crypto Conference steering committee reviews the candidates and selects winners annually, and naming the recipients has become one of my favorite moments every year.

This year’s recipients have made formidable advances in our field, and it is an honor to introduce them to you.

Eric Rescorla has been recognized for sustained contributions to the standardization of security protocols, most recently in the development and standardization of TLS 1.3.

Mihir Bellare has made outstanding contributions to the design and analysis of real-world cryptography, including the development of the random oracle model, modes-of-operation, HMAC, and formal models of key exchange.

The awards ceremony was hosted earlier this afternoon at the 2019 Real-World Crypto conference in San Jose. Winners received a cash prize and trophy (pictured below) which is loosely based on the Jefferson Disk wheel cypher. The trophy is an interactive object that is also itself a hidden code waiting to be solved.

Congratulations again to this year’s recipients. I’m looking forward to even more progress made in Cryptography over the years to come.

You can learn more about the Levchin Prize, including how to nominate your work, at www.levchinprize.com.