Daniel Lewin

Lewin was born on May 14, 1970, in Denver, Colorado, and moved to Israel with his parents at age 14, where he spent the remainder of his childhood.{{cite news |title=Daniel was a very special man |url=http://www.ynet.co.il/articles/0,7340,L-1114088,00.html |first=Efrat |last=Weiss |date=12 September 2001 |access-date=12 September 2011|work=Yedioth Ahronoth|publisher=Ynet!|language=Hebrew}}

Lewin served for four years in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) as an officer in Sayeret Matkal, one of the IDF's special forces units. Lewin earned the rank of captain.

He attended the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa while simultaneously working at IBM's research laboratory in the city. While at IBM, he developed the Genesys system, a processor verification tool widely used within IBM and in other companies such as Advanced Micro Devices and SGS-Thomson.{{cite web|title=Akamai Remembers Danny Lewin|url=http://www.akamai.com/html/about/management_dl.html|publisher=Akamai Technologies|date=2006|accessdate=September 12, 2011|archivedate=October 26, 2006|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20061026122336/http://www.akamai.com/html/about/management_dl.html}}

After receiving a Bachelor of Arts and a Bachelor of Science, summa cum laude, in 1995, he traveled to Cambridge, Massachusetts to begin graduate studies toward a Ph.D at the MIT (MIT) in 1996. While there, he and his advisor, Professor F. Thomson Leighton, developed consistent hashing, an algorithm for optimizing Internet traffic.{{cite web | url=http://www.egr.unlv.edu/~bein/SIGACT/lewin.html | first=Tom | last=Leighton | year=2002|access-date=September 12, 2011 |publisher=University of Nevada, Las Vegas|title=Remarks made by Tom Leighton to commemorate the naming of the STOC Best Student Paper Award in honor of the late Daniel Lewin}} These algorithms became the basis for Akamai Technologies, which they founded in 1998. Lewin was the company's chief technology officer and a board member, and accumulated substantial wealth during the Internet boom.{{cite news|script-title=he:דני לוין, מייסד אקאמאי ובוגר הטכניון, ברשימת העשירים הצעירים |url=http://www.globes.co.il/news/article.aspx?did=481607 |date=3 April 2001 |access-date=12 September 2011 |publisher=Globes |language=Hebrew |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111115173153/http://www.globes.co.il/news/article.aspx?did=481607 |archive-date=November 15, 2011}}

File:12.6.11DanielMLewinPanelN-75ByLuigiNovi1.jpg's North Pool, along with those of other passengers of Flight 11.]]

Lewin was reportedly stabbed aboard American Airlines Flight 11 during its hijacking in the September 11 attacks while traveling to a business meeting in Los Angeles.{{cite web|first=Molly Knight|last=Raskin|url=https://slate.com/technology/2015/09/danny-lewin-the-first-victim-on-9-11-and-an-architect-of-the-internet.html|title=The First Victim of Sept. 11|website=Slate|date=September 11, 2015|access-date=September 23, 2023}} A 2001 FAA memo suggests he may have been stabbed by Satam al-Suqami after attempting to thwart the hijacking. According to the memo, Lewin was seated in business class in seat 9B, near hijackers Mohamed Atta, Abdulaziz al-Omari and al-Suqami. Initial reports indicated that he had been shot by al-Suqami, but the final draft of the memo omitted all references to gunfire.{{cite news | title = UPI hears...|publisher = United Press International|date = March 6, 2002 | url = http://www.upi.com/Business_News/Security-Industry/2002/03/06/UPI-hears/UPI-87441015437383/ | access-date=September 12, 2011}}

According to 9/11 Commission Report, Lewin was stabbed by one of the hijackers, likely Satam al-Suqami, who was seated directly behind him.{{cite web|url=https://9-11commission.gov/report/911Report_Ch1.htm|work=9/11 Commission Report|title=1. WE HAVE SOME PLANES|publisher=9/11 Commission|via=National Archives and Records Administration|date=July 22, 2004|accessdate=September 19, 2021|archivedate=September 1, 2004|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20040901120839/https://9-11commission.gov/report/911Report_Ch1.htm}} Flight attendants who contacted airline officials from the plane reported that Lewin's throat was slashed, presumably by the terrorist sitting behind him.{{cite news| url = http://www.wbur.org/2011/09/08/9-11-impact-boston| title = Cambridge Co. Keeps Founder's Spirit Alive After 9/11| publisher = WBUR-FM|first = Curt| last = Nickisch| date = 8 September 2011| access-date=September 12, 2011}}

The 9/11 Commission speculated that Lewin, who had served four years in the Israeli military, may have attempted to confront Atta or Omari, who had been seated in front of him, unaware that al-Suqami was sitting just behind him. Lewin was identified as the first victim of the September 11 attacks.{{cite web|author=Jager, Ron|url=http://www.5tjt.com/local-news/11694-danny-lewin-the-first-victim-of-911|title=Danny Lewin: The First Victim Of 9/11|publisher=Five Towns Jewish Times|date=September 8, 2011|accessdate=September 19, 2021|archivedate=October 17, 2011|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20111017194106/http://5tjt.com/local-news/11694-danny-lewin-the-first-victim-of-911}}

Lewin was survived by his wife Anne and his two sons, Eitan and Itamar, who were five and eight years old, respectively, at the time of the attacks.{{cite web |url=http://tech.mit.edu/V122/N47/lewinFRANKDONE.47p.html |title=Volume 122, Issue 47 |work=The Tech |publisher=MIT |access-date=12 September 2011 |archive-date=15 November 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111115170240/http://tech.mit.edu/V122/N47/lewinFRANKDONE.47p.html |url-status=dead }}

In July 2004, it was reported that Lewin's recovered remains had been identified.{{cite web|url=https://nypost.com/2004/07/11/remains-of-first-911-victim-are-idd/|newspaper=New York Post|author=Dan, Uri|title=REMAINS OF FIRST 9/11 VICTIM ARE ID'D|date=July 11, 2004|accessdate=September 18, 2021|archivedate=September 15, 2021|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20210915160940/https://nypost.com/2004/07/11/remains-of-first-911-victim-are-idd/}}

Canadian actor Brad Hampton portrayed Lewin in the BBC docudrama Zero Hour Season 1: Episode 2 (2004) called "The Last Hour of Flight 11".{{Citation |title="Zero Hour" The Last Hour of Flight 11 (TV Episode 2004) |url=https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0754391/fullcredits/?ref_=tt_cst_sm|access-date=23 March 2025 |language=en-US}}

After his death, the intersection of Main and Vassar Streets in Cambridge, Massachusetts, was renamed Danny Lewin Square in his honor. The award for the best student-written paper at the ACM Symposium on Theory of Computing (STOC) was also named the Danny Lewin Best Student Paper Award, in his honor. In 2011, on the tenth anniversary of his death, Lewin's contributions to the internet were memorialized by friends and colleagues.Sitaraman, Ramesh (September 11, 2011). [http://www.cs.umass.edu/news/latest-news/911-personal-remembrance-prof-ramesh-sitaraman "9/11: A Personal Remembrance"]. University of Massachusetts Amherst.Bray, Hiawatha Bray (September 4, 2011). [http://www.boston.com/business/technology/articles/2011/09/04/akamai_thrives_in_the_spirit_of_its_lost_founder/ "A lost spirit still inspires"]. The Boston Globe.

At the National September 11 Memorial & Museum, Lewin is memorialized at the North Pool, on Panel N-75.{{cite web|url=http://names.911memorial.org/#lang=en_US&page=person&id=4430|title=South Pool: Panel N-75 - Daniel M. Lewin|publisher=National September 11 Memorial & Museum|access-date=October 29, 2011|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130727095710/http://names.911memorial.org/#lang=en_US&page=person&id=4430|archive-date=July 27, 2013}}

Lewin is the subject of the 2013 biography No Better Time: The Brief, Remarkable Life of Danny Lewin, the Genius Who Transformed the Internet by Molly Knight Raskin.{{cite book |title=No Better Time|url=https://www.dacapopress.com/titles/molly-knight-raskin/no-better-time/9780306821677/ |publisher=Da Capo Press |access-date=February 18, 2023 |date=27 June 2017|isbn=9780306821677 |last1=Raskin |first1=Molly Knight }} According to Raskin, "Because of Akamai, almost every major news site remained up and running [on September 11], a feat that proved everything Danny promised to be possible".

• 1995 – The Technion named him the year's Outstanding Student in Computer Engineering.
• 1998 – Morris Joseph Levin Award for Best Masterworks Thesis Presentation at MIT.{{Clear}}

{{reflist}}

{{Commons category|Daniel M. Lewin}}

• [http://www.akamai.com/dl/technical_publications/ConsistenHashingandRandomTreesDistributedCachingprotocolsforrelievingHotSpotsontheworldwideweb.pdf Consistent hashing for relieving hot spots on the world wide web], Akamai Technologies.
• [http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4120871,00.html Daniel was an inspiration], Ynetnews.
• [http://www.akamai.com/dl/technical_publications/network_overview_osr.pdf The Akamai Network: A Platform for High-Performance Internet Applications, Erik Nygren, Ramesh K. Sitaraman, and Jennifer Sun, ACM SIGOPS Operating Systems Review, Vol. 44, No.3, July 2010.]
• {{Find a Grave|127176035|Daniel Mark Lewin}}

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{{Casualties of the September 11 attacks}}

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Category:American Airlines Flight 11 victims

Category:1970 births

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Category:American computer scientists

Category:American emigrants to Israel

Category:Murdered American Jews

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Category:Victims of the September 11 attacks

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