WALL STREET JOURNAL On June 13, 2010—merely Day 55 in the nightmare of the Deep Horizon explosion in the Gulf of Mexico—a fleet of naked bicyclists rode the streets of Manhattan to protest oil and BP, the company whose reputation is now so badly stained by a well that will not stop gushing. YouTube immortalized…
AMERICAN SPECTATOR The image of the oil industry is captured (admittedly, delicously) by Bruce Willis play the rough-and-ready character of an oil roughneck in the 1998 Hollywood blockbuster Armageddon – driving golf balls off an oil platform aimed at a Greenpeace ship. Dirty, tough, old-world, almost Jurassic. Oil, in short, is seen as old tech. So yesterday.
At the most basic level, there are just two types of security: physical security to protect people and assets, and information security to protect bits and bytes in data systems. And, information security products are generally more intelligent than physical security products.
Publicly and behind closed doors, an increasingly vocal faction of experts claims we need an Apollo-type program to create new technologies for homeland security and military force protection. Some may miss the days — and the model — of the Bell Labs. Some are unreformed Cold Warriors — the Manhattan Project is their analogy.
All are well intentioned, but all are quite wrong. These models are a mistake for two reasons: Today the character of the threats, and the nature of innovation, is vastly different.
With oil prices sinking, not soaring … will investors from Wall Street to Silicon Valley lose interest in energy technology? Not hardly. But in the cold dawn of more “rational” oil prices, investors and policy makers will fare better keeping in mind seven energy realities.
So, where are the high-tech solutions in this conflict with terrorists, plotters and evildoers? Surely a nation that can produce iPods, cell phones, gigabit data streams, server farms and laser-guided bombs can sniff out some bad stuff without banning every water bottle and toothpaste tube from air travelers. Our soldiers are struggling mightily with a…