Mark Seiden (CISSP, CISA) has consulted since 1983 in areas of security, network, and software engineering to companies world-wide, with clients including startups, major computer and communication companies, financial institutions, law firms, UN agencies, online content providers, ISPs, research organizations and non-profits. Recent projects have included design/architecture/implementation for ebusiness systems, security for online financial transaction processing and for a distributed document processing system, custom firewalls based on open-source components, as an expert in computer crime cases, penetration testing the network and physical security of deployed systems/enterprises/colocation facilities, and an appliance and technology for online preservation of content in digital libraries.

With 35 years of programming experience, he's been a UNIX and mainframe system programmer, written Macintosh applications, spent time at IBM Research, Xerox PARC, Bell Labs and Bellcore, and taught at the university level.

He has a MS in Computer Science/Electrical Engineering from Columbia University, and as an undergraduate at Columbia studied math, music, and linguistics. He has written for the New York Times, Wired, SunExpert, Unix Review (among others) and been technical editor of several books about computing, has been on the Board of Directors of two user groups, is on the Technical Advisory Board of Counterpane Security Systems, and is a member of the Leadership Group of Cutter Consortium's Risk Management Intelligence Network. Time Digital named him one of the 50 "CyberElite" in their first annual lists.

In past lives, he worked as recording engineer at music festivals (Aspen and Marlboro), as a consultant to Lucasfilm and IRCAM, been classical music director of a New York radio station, and worked sound and lights for Nikolais Dance Theatre and the New York Shakespeare Festival.