J. Eric Townsend, IDSA
414 South Craig St #308
Pittsburgh, PA 15213
jet@townsend-informatics.com
412.243.0938
http://www.townsend-informatics.com

 

Relevant Experience

First Recipient of the Master of Science in Tangible Interaction Design from Carnegie Mellon University, (2007-2009)
In May 2009 I was awarded the first MS Tangible Interaction Design granted by Carnegie Mellon University.
My research was in the areas of computational situational awareness and passive haptic feedback, including teaching physical computing and interaction design using Arduino, Processing, and other open source tools.
My coursework included classes in Data Visualization (B. Fry, G. Levin), Interaction Design (J. Zimmerman), Live Performance and Interactive Technology (M. Grey, G. Levin), Machine Learning and Art (C. Guestrin, O. Khan), History of Clothing, and Advanced Japanese.
Senior Product Security and Privacy Engineer, TiVo, Inc., (June 2001 - current)
Design and implement security and privacy mechanisms for TiVo consumer electronic products and the TiVo Service with a focus on customer experience and usability:
  • Authentication and nonrepudiation mechanisms for client/server communication
  • Infrastructure for provisioning TiVo DVR service in a secure manner
  • Identify security and privacy requirements in new products, work with marketing, legal and enginereing to design and implement solutions.
  • Support legal team in evaluating technologies for patents, contracts and enforcement efforts.
  • Drive security reviews of the TiVo DVR: Write security review documents for internal use, RFPs for outside vendors, work with TiVo engineers to find and resolve security vulnerabilities.
  • Perform intrusive and passive security analysis of the TiVo service, develop and implement changes to improve security for the systems and networks used to support over 6 million TiVo DVRs.
  • Mentor junior security staff and educate engineering on application and server security.
  • Evaluate existing procedures and develop new procedures to increase TiVo customer privacy.
  • Monitor TiVo piracy activity, work with counsel to investigate and prosecute individuals attempting to break into TiVo servers or steal service. Develop and present company-wide brown bag sessions on TiVo hacking and piracy.
 
Independent Consultant, (June 1998 - June 2001)
  • Work with sales engineers on customized, secured, handheld solutions.
  • Develop web-based commerce systems using CyberSource credit-card processing software.
  • Provide technical editing services for Teach Yourself Perl in 21 Days by Laura Lemay.
  • Specify, procure and install firewall, VPN, WAN, remote access and networking equipment from Cisco, Foundry, RSA and Compatible Systems for small to mid-sized startups.
  • Integrate acquired companies into existing infrastructure, including mail and web services, network security and remote access.
 
Senior Software Engineer, Liquid Audio, Inc. (April 1997 - June 1998)
Specify, design and implement secure online commerce systems and rights reporting database systems:
  • Design and implement the Liquid Operations Center (LOC) online commerce and Certificate Authority service using using RSA BSAFE, Oracle 8 and Solaris.
  • Develop security and audit procedures for the LOC.
  • Integrate Liquid Audio commercial music delivery software with Internet-based credit card software (CyberCash and CyberSource), mSQL and Oracle 8 using C, C++ and Perl.
  • Support Liquid Audio Sales and Marketing web events for major customer accounts.
 
Manager Online Communications, General Magic, Inc. (July 1996 - April 1997)
Perform all tasks related to running General Magic's internal and external web sites, corporate mailing lists and USENET servers.
 
Software Engineer, General Magic, Inc. (July 1995 - July 1996)
Specify, write, test and ship UNIX based development tools based on GCC and GDB for an embedded-system handheld computer running the Magic Cap operating system.
 
Technical Lead, MIS, General Magic, Inc. (July 1994 - July 1995)
Design and implement reliable, redundant and secure infrastructure to support engineers, shared partner networks, secure remote access and Internet connectivity:
 
Parallel Systems Engineer, NASA Ames Numerical Aerodynamic Simulations Division (July 1992 - July 1994)
Manage and program Thinking Machines CM-5, Intel iPSC/860 and Paragon parallel systems.
 
Research Programmer/Systems Administrator, University of Houston Department of Mathematics (August 1989 - July 1992)
Manage and program Intel and IBM parallel supercomputers, Sun, Digital and RS/6000 workstations.

Education and Other Skills

Master Tangible Interaction Design, Carnegie Mellon University.
BA Journalism; minor Computer Science, University of Houston.

Additional education and coursework in analog electronics, physical computing, studio arts, machine shop technologies, welding, technical drawing and software 3d modeling.

Continuing studies in design, digital fabrication and Japanese language.

Professional Memberships and Personal Projects

Participate in open source hardware and software projects: Arduino, RepRap, OpenFrameworks, Processing.

Co-founder/organizer of the Pittsburgh, PA chapter of dorkbot, http://www.dorkbot.org/dorkbotpgh

Create art for the Burning Man festival.

General Class Amateur Radio license, KG6ZVQ

Member of ACM, ARRL, IEEE, IXDA; Professional Member of Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA).

References available upon request.