Eric Blankenhorn is a software engineer based in the Mobile, AL area with over two decades of experience building embedded and IoT systems, spanning file systems, kernel work, networking, and modern security and encryption. He began as a college intern and now contributes to wolfSSL, improving TLS tooling and hardening cryptographic code while adding practical features to wolfMQTT such as MQTTv5 AUTH/property handling and IBM Watson IoT examples. His strengths lie at the intersection of low-level C systems engineering and pragmatic IoT integration—refactoring test tools for real-world flexibility and addressing subtle security issues like making DH arrays const. A University of South Alabama computer science graduate, he consistently turns protocol requirements into robust, portable implementations for constrained devices.
8 years of coding experience
19 years of employment as a software developer
Bachelor of Science - BS, Computer Science, Bachelor of Science - BS, Computer Science at University of South Alabama
wolfMQTT is a small, fast, portable MQTT client implementation, including support for TLS 1.3.
Role in this project:
Embedded Systems Engineer / IoT Developer
Contributions:16 releases, 160 reviews, 206 commits in 4 years 7 months
Contributions summary:Eric contributed to the wolfMQTT project, a small and portable MQTT client implementation, by adding examples and features. Their commits included the addition of an example for IBM Watson IoT platform integration and support for MQTTv5 features, notably handling of AUTH packets and the inclusion of property support. The user's work demonstrates an understanding of the MQTT protocol and its application in IoT scenarios.
The wolfSSL library is a small, fast, portable implementation of TLS/SSL for embedded devices to the cloud. wolfSSL supports up to TLS 1.3 and DTLS 1.3!
Role in this project:
Back-end Developer & Security Engineer
Contributions:100 reviews, 240 commits, 234 PRs in 4 years 10 months
Contributions summary:Eric's commits primarily focused on enhancing the `tls_bench` test tool within the wolfSSL library. They implemented features to enable command-line argument parsing, allowing for greater test flexibility. Their work involved refactoring code to utilize dynamic buffers based on maximum record size and resolving type conversion and data initialization issues within the test environment. The user also addressed security concerns by declaring DH arrays as const and contributing various fixes and improvements to the underlying SSL code.
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