There have been several topics in the news recently that have caught my attention. I wonder if they have caught your attention, too.
As you know, we have been working on a book about Network Solutions for the past few years. Early in this process, we interviewed a number of people who played key roles in Network Solutions and in the development of the Internet.
One of these people was Steve Lukasik, a former director of ARPA (now known as DARPA), who provided extensive material on Internet security. I was therefore very interested to read this past week that President Obama has sent to Congress a proposal to improve cyber security regulations.
There is good reason for this. Not only are there immediate security threats to individuals, businesses, and governmental institutions, but the threats are proliferating as rapidly as the Internet itself. According to recent reports, cybercriminals are perpetrating credit card thefts, fraud, and other scams to rob computer users of more than $100 billion a year.
Unfortunately, the criminals have the upper hand when it comes to innovation. Says Patrick Lincoln, director of the computer science laboratory at SRI International, “Right now the bad guys are improving more quickly than the good guys.”
Within the past few years, unknown foreign entities repeatedly penetrated computer networks within NASA, the Departments of Commerce, Homeland Security, and Defense, along with the National Defense University. Department of Defense computers are prodded by hackers hundreds of thousands of times every day. Even the White House computer networks have been the targets of cybercriminals.
Though new regulations will likely do little to dissuade hackers from plying their trade, they will hopefully enable our government to act more quickly and decisively against them.
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I was also interested to see last week that President Obama proposed a new plan to open up the Alaska petroleum reserve to new drilling while fast-tracking the environmental assessment of petroleum exploration in certain areas of the Atlantic Ocean. My understanding is that Obama also wants to extend the leases of oil companies whose work was interrupted in the Arctic Ocean and Gulf of Mexico after last year’s massive BP oil spill. At the same time, Obama has proposed to end oil and gas company subsidies — an idea that seems to be gaining in momentum.
I personally believe that tapping our domestic sources of oil and gas is a good idea, and I support Obama’s proposal. However, according to analysts, the United States possesses only about 2 percent of the world’s petroleum reserves. As we currently consume 25 percent of the world’s daily crude oil output, the proposed increase in domestic oil and gas production will likely have only a limited impact on gasoline prices. But it is still a step in the right direction. At the same time as we increase production of oil and gas, we need to continue our exploration into new sources of alternative fuels, such as the work being done by the San Diego Center for Algae Biotechnology and the Craig Venter’s Synthetic Genomics.
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Finally, I was pleased to see that Michigan’s film tax credit program has recently been paying significant dividends to the state. Michigan and the city of Detroit have been trying for some time to attract new businesses to replace those lost as the automotive industry has declined in recent years.
Michigan has a program in place that offers $100 million in tax credits each year to the film industry. These credits have been very popular. For example, a new Disney film based on the Wizard of Oz is set to begin production in Michigan soon. This film has a production budget of more than $150 million, a large portion of which will be spent in Michigan.
In addition, Raleigh Studios of Los Angeles has recently opened a new studio in Pontiac, Michigan. This studio, which cost $76 million to build, has seven stages and will be the primary location for the filming of Disney’s new film.
This financial shot in the arm couldn’t come to soon for Michigan. The state has really suffered, and I for one am glad to see it get the chance it needs to recover.
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I have included a couple of photos from our recent trip to Oceanside. It is good to get out of the house and onto the water. Fortunately the weather has been favorable lately.
— Bob
