Name: Michael C. Widerkrantz, formerly Cardell.
Location: Malmö, Sweden.
Email: mc at the domain hack.org.
Permits: Swedish citizen. EU passport carrier. Work permit in all European Union member states.
References: Other contact data and references are available on request.
Profile: MC's Consultant Profile.
I'm a consultant specializing in computer networks and Unix based server applications with a special focus on design and development of network protocols, simulation software and construction of network analysis tools. Consultant profile.
Keywords: System architecture, computer security, computer networks, Unix, Open Source, software development. Workshops. Lectures.
I helped design, plan and develop software for a huge distributed system scalable to hundreds of thousands of camera nodes: the Axis Subscriber Technology Services system. Axis STS lets end-users deploy cameras at home or in their shops and give all of them (potentially thousands of users) a single way of configuring their cameras, view recordings et cetera through the use of a web portal.
Most of what I did for STS was Unix server side, computer networks and scalability. I didn't do much with the web portal. I also did some Unix administration on customer systems and internal test systems.
For the Axis STS system, I designed and developed an RTSP/RTP proxy in C that runs on the server farm. The proxy is mainly used so end-users can view a live stream from their Axis cameras with their cellular phones.
Later, I changed department at Axis and started by doing software chip verification in C for the new Axis chip generation, ARTPEC-3.
I was also involved in embedded software development in C on Linux-based systems, the next generation (ARTPEC-3 based) Axis cameras.
I also fixed some bugs in the debugger GDB for the CRIS architecture and wrote tools (in C) to speak JTAG with the Axis products.
My final assignment was the design and development of a network analysis tool for streaming video in C under Linux.
My main role was as a network expert and embedded software developer for a military grade VPN appliance with hardware-based red/black separation and hardware cryptography, known by the Swedish Armed Forces as Krypteringsapparat 920 (or Kryapp 920).
I participated in the design and development of the network behaviour of the VPN appliance, designed and developed tools for emulation of Kryapp 920 and tools for cryptographic verification, network analysis and tests (in C and Perl, mostly). During these tasks I designed and developed several network protocols.
I was also the maintainer of CVS and Bugzilla, arranged for nigthly builds with some statistics, and did some internal Unix and network administration.
I gave technical advice and did studies on Open Source to, for instance, Scania and Telelogic and other companies and did a few pre-sale studies for several companies for large development projects.
I participated in maintaing and developing programs in C under Unix-like operating systems for the internal network infrastructure of this Internet Service Provider, such as the in-house integrated DHCP/BGP/DNS software in Point of Presence nodes.
I also wrote programs to integrate the ISP's administrative infrastructure for provisioning services using Tibco's TIB/Rendezvous. Specifically, I wrote a TIB/Rendezvous to LDAP gateway in C to run under Solaris.
Many assignments were small, but very urgent jobs. One example, among numerous small tasks, was developing an IP spoofing syslog server with filtering support in C for Solaris for use with our Cisco Infocenter.
I also participated in several internal studies for new services for the backbone network, the billing systems and the basic ISP services.
I did an investigation on e-commerce systems, including a proof of concept development of a new distributed e-commerce system in Python. I also worked on development of seller side API libraries in C under Linux.
I designed and wrote tools in C for use under Linux, FreeBSD and Solaris for research on Voice over IP and other streaming media at the Computer and Network Architecture Laboratory.
I participated in building a complete customised Linux distribution for a robotics company and wrote fully automatic installation programs in C for this Linux distribution and helped writing a Linux device driver, also in C.
I helped in developing application proxies in C and kernel customisations for the Fuego Firewall (now sold as Ingate Firewall).
For many customers I ported, maintained and customised commonly used Unix system programs, normally written in C, but with many Perl, Python and Bourne Shell scripts.
For a large customer I co-wrote a complex web-based time reporting system in Python.
In a pool of experts, I helped giving advanced support to system administrators at customer sites on system configuration, network setup, firewall configuration, computer security et cetera.
Nota bene: Signum Support is now split into Cendio AB and Ingate Systems AB.
My main task was system integration for an electronic medical journal system.
Some of what I did was reverse engineering of foreign systems, usually without the help of any documentation, source code or any other references. The foreign systems were, for instance, databases under Hewlett-Packard's MPE operating system, OpenVMS, a large number of Unix flavours and at a few times IBM mainframes. Most of these systems used more or less abandoned proprietary software.
My job in these cases was to write glue, usually in Perl or C, to interface to the systems.
I also had assignments for system and computer network analysis for hospitals, digital X-ray systems and MRI installations.
I was also the Unix administrator for our internal systems.
Nota bene: IIS Medicinsk Informatik is now known as Cambio Healthcare Systems AB.
I worked at a Bull division called Telco Solutions. The division handled system integration and infrastructure solutions for the telecom market.
I participated in developing a carrier scale voice mailbox platform with support for thousands of simultaneous users, at the time known as the OpenVoice system. The implementation languages were C and C++.
Voice messages were stored on a specialized filesystem developed in-house, but the operating system was plain AIX on off the shelf Bull DPX/20 hardware (at the time this was IBM RS/6000 systems in disguise). The only non-standard hardware involved was the trunk interface.
In a solo project I also developed tools in C for data extraction and aggregation for statistical purposes from a telephone exchange system.
I was the sole Unix system administration for all development servers, running AIX, D-NIX (Diab Data's Unix), GNU/Linux and Plan 9 systems as well as being responsible for the site network, including WAN links and routers.
During my time I at Bull I ported many programs to AIX, D-NIX and Plan 9, usually C programs from other Unix-like operating systems.
Nota bene: The department I worked for at Bull was, last I heard, part of Teligent AB, known as Nabla Communications, Inc. in the US. The Bull Telco Division still exists, though.
I studied Literature, History, Linguistics, Philosophy and a number of other subjects. My BA thesis from 1994 was in Literature: Computers, Storytelling and World Creation, one of the first academic papers in Sweden which mentioned multi-participant interactive literature.