History of TCC

(Including subjective comments by Oded Goldreich)

The need for a forum devoted to the presentation of works in the Theory of Cryptography was first noted in the early 1990's. Early attempts to partially meet the need led to the establishing of the Theory of Cryptography Library (by Oded Goldreich in 1996). The effort involved in running a conference deterred an attempt to establish TCC till 2002, when the idea was put forward by Mihir Bellare. A steering committee was soon formed, and it decided to hold the 1st TCC in February 2004.

1st TCC (2004)

Time: February 19-21, 2004
Location: MIT, Cambridge, MA, USA
General chair: Shafi Goldwasser
Program chair: Moni Naor
Proceedings: Springer, LNCS 2951

The 1st TCC was a great success. The scientific program was of good quality (at least as good as the average CRYPTO/EuroCrypt quality), the attendance was beyond our expectations (with approximately 100 registered), and the atmosphere was full of excitement and energy.

It seems that the a priori feeling that this conference is needed turned out to be a big understatement: the submissions and the attendance (with many traveling from the West Coast, Europe and even Japan) speak for themselves. Indeed, if TCC had not existed then most of the works presented in it would have been "lost" (i.e., would have not appeared in any conference).

2nd TCC (2005)

Time: February 10-12, 2005
Location: MIT, Cambridge, MA, USA
General chair: Shafi Goldwasser
Program chair: Joe Kilian
Proceedings: Springer, LNCS 3378

The 2nd TCC re-located in MIT, and re-iterated the success of the 1st TCC. The program and attendance maintained their previous level (with approximately 125 registered participants).
The conference was held in the new architecturally fascinating Stata Center.

Starting with the 3rd TCC, the conference has been sponsored by IACR .

3rd TCC (2006)

Time: March 4-7, 2006
Location: Columbia U., NYC, NY, USA
General chair: Shai Halevi and Tal Rabin
Program chair: Shai Halevi and Tal Rabin
Proceedings: Springer, LNCS 3876

The 3rd TCC took place in NYC, and the feeling was that the conference has consolidated.

4th TCC (2007)

Time: February 21-24, 2007
Location: KNAW, Amsterdam, NL
General chair: Ronald Cramer
Program chair: Salil Vadhan
Proceedings: Springer, LNCS 4392

Attendence seems to be growing (with over 140 registered participants this time) and a location in Europe seems not to harm it.
Needless to say, it was fun being in charming Amsterdam.

5th TCC (2008)

Time: March 19-21, 2008
Location: NYU, NYC, NY, USA
General chair: Yevgeniy Dodis and Victor Shoup
Program chair: Ran Canetti
Proceedings: Springer, LNCS 4948

Yet another successful conference.
My impression was that the proportion of students was higher this time. In any case, I was impressed with the quality of this set of students.

6th TCC (2009)

Time: March 15-17, 2009
Location: San Francisco, USA
General chair: Dan Boneh
Program chair: Omer Reingold
Proceedings: Springer, LNCS 5444

Attendence (only barely above 100 registerations) seems to have been hurt by the economic crisis.
See Oded's comments on eight of the talks .

7th TCC (2010)

Time: February 9-11, 2010
Location: ETH, Zurich, SWISS
General chair: Martin Hirt and Ueli Maurer
Program chair: Daniele Micciancio
Proceedings: Springer, LNCS 5978

The perfect local arrangments may set expectations at a level that will be hard (if not impossible) to meet.
Treats included espresso machines for lunch breaks and a self-prepared fondue dinner. Regarding the program itself, see Oded's notes on ten of the talks .