Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
C&MT, VCC 305
Troy, New York 12180-3590
Personal: (518) 331-3457
Work: (518) 276-2915
Email:
Goal
To secure a research programmer position where I can apply my knowledge
and skills in programming, visualization, experimental design, and data
analysis. Apply semantic web tools and techniques in the field of
electronic document preparation, search and storage. Apply semantic web
techniques for creating large, distributed, knowledge bases. Develop tools
for on-line mathematics pedagogy.
Interests
Electronic document preparation, storage, search and sorting, semantic web;
Programming language design and implementation;
Interpreters and compilers; Email security, virus and spam detection and remediation;
Functional programming and type-safe scripting languages;
Scientific visualization, information visualization, computer graphics and animation;
Copyright and intellectual property law, technology and law;
Network security and privacy
Research: Experimental design and statistical analysis, ANOVA, Regression,
Factor Analysis, Multi-Dimensional Scaling, Categorical data analysis, model fitting;
information visualization, Human-Computer Interaction; Statistical analysis and model
fitting; Use of R, S-Plus, SAS, SPSS, UNIX|STAT, Systat, Minitab.
Problem solving: Strong troubleshooting, problem solving skills.
Ability to learn and apply technical knowledge quickly.
Languages and Communication: Conversational Hungarian, strong
communication, writing, and presentation skills.
Employment
August 2002--Present
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy NY
Senior Systems Programmer, Technical manager of C&MT's email services group:
Responsible for installing, maintaining and overseeing all email services including: STMP cluster
using sendmail, MIMEdefang Clam anti-virus and
Respite anti-spam;
Webmail; Cyrus IMAP; qpopper;
ListProc and Sympa; Exchange. Technical support for email. Email and computer security.
October 1994--August 2002
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy NY
Senior Systems Programmer:
Administration of email, Webmail, AFS, Usenet, ListProc and ftp, and miscellaneous services.
User and technical support for TeX, emacs, X windowing system and other software packages.
Email and computer security. Technical support for email services.
June 1987--October 1994
Publication Services, Champaign, IL
Director of Software Development:
Design, implementation and maintenance of TeX-based typesetting system on Gould and Sequent super-mini
computers. Configuration and maintenance of UNIX, X Window terminals and
Macintosh networks. Wrote user documentation and supplied user support
for programs and system.
Sept. 1986--May 1987
University of Illinois, Department of Psychology, Champaign, IL
Graduate Teaching Assistant:
Preparation and presentation of course material. Presentation of
assignments using IBM PC computer lab. Individual instruction of students.
August 1983--July 1986
University of Illinois, Department of Psychology, Champaign, IL
Graduate Research Assistant:
Design, implementation and analysis of experiments in memory, skill learning, problem solving
and Computer Human Interaction. Supervision of undergraduate assistants.
Education and Professional
M.A. in Cognitive and Experimental Psychology, University of Illinois,
Urbana, 1987.
B.S. in Psychology, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, 1983.
Member IEEE Computer Society, ACM, SIGPlan,
SIGGRAPH, USENIX, TeX Users Group
Sample Projects
Email Log Analysis and Search:
Programs to parse email
logs and store envelope information in PostgreSQL database. Web
interface using Tomcat and Spring framework to allow Postmaster and
Network security to check delivery status, resolve errors, and search
for local Spambots. Automated spam activity detection.
List Server Upgrade:
Migrate current ListProc server to Sympa. Migrate existing lists
and archives. Integrate with RESPITE anti-spam service. Integrate with
Simon (Oracle DB) generated lists.
Email Mobility:
Expanding email services for hand-held and mobile devices. SMTP-AUTH,
"Push IMAP", Mobile webmail, Device and client testing on PalmOS, WindowsCE
and SymbianOS and iPhone. User documentation.
Cyrus IMAP Cluster:
Migration from single Cyrus IMAP server to a Cyrus Murder cluster.
Account migration and load balancing programs. Quota allocation
management program. Merging legacy qpopper POP3 with Cyrus IMAP system
including documentation, data collection and analysis of existing
POP3 accounts, IMAP client testing, and further Webmail enhancements to smooth the
transition for POP3 users.
RESPITE Anti-Spam:
Based on CanIt, the Rensselaer Enterprise Spam Interdiction
TEchnology blocks over 1,000,000 spam messages per day. Managed testing program,
transition plan, and interface enhancements with email and web team.
Ran data analysis on anti-spam results using beta tester data. Performed
post-transition data-analysis on spam results, and false-alarms.
Programs synchronizing ListProc list-owner data with Respite account access (via
PostgreSQL), enabling management of spam to lists. End result was an
90% reduction in spam to end-user accounts, with a 0.3% false-alarm
rate. Per-user customization allows an even further reduction in FA rate.
Postmaster Email Manager:
Program to categorize and manage postmaster mail using IMAP. This program
executes a simple stack language searching for postmaster email for
sender, recipient and originating MTA, and re-files email of interest for
human analysis and action. This reduced the burden of email the human
postmaster needed to check, allowing system errors to be more quickly
identified.
Campus Webmail Upgrade:
Optimizations and upgrade of campus Webmail written in Perl CGI with Embedded Perl.
Interface design improvements including IMAP Server-Side
search and sorting, IMAP ACL editor, hierarchical folder display, smart indexing.
Integration of Webmail with RESPITE anti-spam system; Webmail and IMAP documentation.
Modifications to manage the very large (over 50,000 messages) mailboxes.
Integrated Messaging Committee:
Co-lead on DotCIO Integrated Messaging Committee to propose upgrade path for
Cisco Voicemail and Integrated messaging. Wrote committee white-paper proposing full
upgrade to campus Exchange system, merger of Voicemail Exchange system with campus system,
and full rollout of Blackberry Enterprise Service for mobile email access. Continuing work
with ad hoc mobile and VoIP telecommunications group.
Webmail to IMAP Conversion:
Conversion programs to migrate stored
email from old, proprietary webmail system to Cyrus IMAP;
Initial test data using Cyrus migration tools indicated email
transfer would take from 3 to 7 days. This was unacceptable.
I wrote a new program which used
multiple transfer streams, and differential transfer (transferring only email changes)
to bring final conversion time down to under 1 hour. This program also set all IMAP email
attributes to correctly match attributes in original proprietary system.
Distributed SMTP Email Architecture:
Lead team developing RPI's distributed SMTP server architecture, moving RPI
from a single email server for SMTP and POP3 to a cluster of SMTP servers behind Cisco Redirectors.
This provided provided email delivery redundancy, and provided the capacity necessary to
scan all incoming email for viruses and spam.
Later integration with CanIt allowed per-user configurable anti-spam settings.
Webmail:
Installed RPI's first Webmail server. The server, based on EMUMail Perl CGI source, required
extensive modifications to aid navigation and integrate with RPI's qpopper server. Negotiated
EMUMail source code license.
Impose:
Design and implementation of Impose for printing
fully imposed pages as four-up and eight-up plates. Impose
replaced the previous imposition programs with a fully programmable
imposition layout. The project includes the design of a C-like programming
language for specifying impositions, an interpreter engine for building
the impositions, file format independent drivers for writing imposed
files, and user's manual.
Font Metric Adjustment:
Design and implementation of font metric adjustment programs. These programs
combine the separate files which supply printer font information
and convert them to a common format for adjustment. This greatly
simplified the process of preparing PostScript and CORA fonts for printing
and previewing with TeX.
TeX DVI Page Impositions:
Page impositions are layouts of book pages suitable for industrial book printers.
Designed and implementation of TeX DVI based imposition software utilizing
existing PostScript driver supplemented with page repositioning software.
Project proved feasibility of imposition printing, and had been used to
print a dozen books before Impose replacement program was completed.
PS-TeKnoColor:
Co-developed PS-TeKnoColor color
printing system for generating 4-color printer separations. This involved writing Adobe separator
compatible output from TeX input. It has been used since to print hundreds
of 4-color and custom-color books.
Illustration Graphics Metalanguage:
Co-wrote program to plot parametric
function specifications, and output Adobe Illustrator file format. My portion
of the project included designing a C-like language, writing a parser
in YACC and building a stack machine interpreter. Researched
line-smoothing algorithms to discover a technique to convert
curves estimated with (literally) thousands of points into
Besier curves used by Illustrator. When finished the program could
generate nearly complete graphs as Illustrator files ready for artistic final touches.
IEEE Journal Management Software:
Co-developed journal management system to aid
production oversight of
two IEEE journals. This
project included installing PostGres database, and writing a TERMCAP/CURSES
menu interface to PostGres database.
TeX DVI to PostScript and CORA:
Designed and implemented TeX DVI to PostScript and CORA translators
used to proof and print books to high resolution typesetters.
Maintenance and documentation of these programs on an ongoing basis
including adding support for color processing, impositions, custom
publishing, and tints and patterns.
Papers and Presentations
Sofka,M.D. & Schwartz, G. ``Vi@9ra, M0r+gages, and RoL3x w@tch3s:
Spam on Rensselaer's Email Servers'' Presentation to Rensselaer
Polytechnic Institutes Deans Council, February 2, 2005.
Sofka,M.D., ``Spam, Spyware, Viruses and Spam: How the Internet has
become an unfriendly place'' Talk presented to the Rensselaer Retirees
Lunch and Learn seminar, February 13, 2004.
Sofka, M.D., Book review:
Writing With TeX, and TeX and LaTeX: Drawing
and Literate Programming by Eitan Gurari,
TUGBoat, 18(1), 37--38, March 1997.
(PostScript.)
Metzger, R.L., Miller, M., Cohen, M., Sofka, M., Borkovec, T.D., Worry
Changes Decision Making: The Effect of Negative Thoughts on Cognitive
Processing, Journal of clinical psychology, 46(1), 78, 1990.
Sofka, M.D., The role of automatic activation
versus remindings in superordinate frequency judgments. Master's
thesis. University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, IL., 1987.
Ross, B.H., & Sofka, M. D. Remindings and the
use of analogies between problems. Paper presented at the 58th annual
meeting of the Midwestern Psychological Association. Chicago, IL., 1986.
Ross, B.H., & Sofka, M. D. Remindings: Noticing, Remembering
and Using Specific Knowledge of Earlier Problems. Unpublished
manuscript, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, IL., 1986.
Sofka, M.D., Ross, B. H., & Barsalou, L. W., The role of
automatic activation in superordinate frequency judgments. Paper
presented at the 58th annual meeting of the Midwestern Psychological
Association. Chicago, IL., 1986.
Sofka, M.D., The structure of the memory trace: A
comparison of several models. Unpublished manuscript,
University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, IL., 1984
Metzger, R.L., Miller, M., Sofka, M.D., Cohen, M., & Pennock,M.,
Information processing and Worrying: Two studies of concept
formation. Paper presented at the 17th annual meeting of the American
Association of Behavior Therapy. Washington D.C., 1983.
Sofka, M. D., A factor analytic study of ego-resiliency Paper
presented at The Pennsylvania State University Undergraduate Psychology
Convention. State College, PA, 1983
