Internet Security, Entrepeneurship, and Science Innovations
14 Comments Published by Dr. Beyster December 16th, 2008 in Entrepreneurship, Network Solutions, Technology.We are making progress on the book. We have finished the first draft of Chapter 4, “Security and Cybercrime,” and we are starting the review process for it. One more chapter is being assembled — on the history of Network Solutions — and the first draft will be completed this week. Our agent Ike Williams will submit the finished chapters in our proposal to prospective publishers early in the New Year.
I managed to keep myself busy last week. In addition to my normally scheduled meetings for the week, on Tuesday Mary Ann Beyster and I met with Doug Mellinger, who used to be at the Kauffman Foundation in Kansas City. He established for the Kauffman Foundation a commission to determine what the nation needed to do to produce more entrepreneurs. I was on the commission, and I was of course interested in entrepreneurs who shared the wealth. The commission met twice a year in a building not far from the Capitol. We each came from different backgrounds, and our group put together several white papers that were given to members of the Carter Administration with further dissemination to Congress. Doug was interested in touching base with me after all these years to see what I was doing. His company also has business here in town so he combined the two things. I was disappointed to learn that the final report that was painstakingly prepared by the Kauffman Foundation for submission to the government seemed to have minor impact.
The next day I met with Martin Hayter and the folks at the UCSD Medical School who are working on genome therapy projects. They gave us a presentation on their activities and current research on genomics. The research program in my estimation is just getting going. A top-notch staff is being hired with some real luminaries and prize winners. Laboratory facilities are being built and a program is being developed. Although the mission is not totally defined yet, the focus will be on basic and clinical research devoted to the discovery of potential therapeutic agents that would enhance the action of current drugs.
On Thursday Mary Ann and I went to lunch with Brian Hays and his associate Barry Butler. We discussed their project to enhance the throughput of the desalinization plant on Catalina using their new reverse osmosis technology with an improved membrane. If the design is correct, the output will be four times what the current plant can produce. The old plant is running now while the new plant is being built. If the new plant works, it will be a real breakthrough. Their new little company — Vari-Ro Inc., located in Solana Beach — plans to combine their desalinization plants with solar or wind energy generation plants. It’s a fairly innovative approach. Their company is patterned after SAIC and their employees own it, so I’m following them closely.
Betty and I had dinner at the Beach and Tennis Club Saturday night with Ed and Joy Freeman while the winds were howling outside. Ed is a previous director of Scripps Institute of Oceanography here in La Jolla. He’s a good friend and I value his opinion on what’s going on in science, including ocean science. He has very wide interests.
I’m looking forward to the Christmas season which is upon us. We currently have one party scheduled, which is coming up soon for the members of the Foundation for Enterprise Development and our supporters at the Beach and Tennis Club.
– Bob
Bob/Mary Ann – there is a lot happening in the world of Cyber Security. The use of various type of products are being considered by may organizations to over come the limitations of the Internet Security Model. For instance look at an encryption chip like http://www.koolspan.com that has hard two factor authentication that can be used in both a stationary environment or a mobile environment and requires no large scale infrastructure to operate. The DNS has had many solutions proposed over the years buy the ICANN has been unable to agree on a solution set AND even when it does there are far more problems than the DNS. There are no silver bullets here. It will be a series of solution sets implemented by router/switch manufactures and individual organizations. Fondest Regards, Bill
Dr. Beyster —
I believe you may still be looking for a title for the book on the history of Network Solutions….Here’s a few suggestions! –
“Building the Address Book that Changed the World”
“Building the Address Book for a Flat World”
Warm Regards and Happy Holidays!
June
Dr. Beyster, any idea how I would be able to obtain a copy of the Kauffman study?
Hylton: We’ll check on that and get back to you. — Bob
June: Thanks, June, for the title suggestions. Your new ones join a list of the many goods ones suggested by our blog readers. It would be helpful to us if the blog readers continue to give us their recommendations. It will be a few more weeks before our agent sends the proposal out to publishers. As in the past, there might be a luncheon in the future for the lucky winner, travel expenses not included. — Bob
Bill: Good to hear from you, Bill. I have never heard of the Koolspan Internet security model and I am looking forward to learning more about it. I’m curious who the sponsors are of this technology. I am personally dependent on Norton Internet Security and whatever Microsoft includes in its operating system. Does the average user need a Koolspan type of solution or is this more for business users? — Bob
Hi Bob
it is really great to you are still on the case…and giving the younger guys a run for their money…I’ve always been inmpressed how your agenda has stayed so relevant and current.
I’ved moved on to spend a chunk of my time with VC activity in SFO re CleanTech investments….seems to be where the action is…but timing, lean running and oil price will be significant factors with start up firms. …more another day.
Best wishes for the Season to you and your Family , kind regards
John Leggate
With respect to Network Solutions and strong authentication,
I have been working with NSI for some time concerning a project
that could possibly address this issue.
Catalyst Lightwave, Inc.
http://www.saic.tv
The website is just an outline of the business plan, that I have
also used with much success diagnosing several of the DNS
issues experianced by NSI.
(The pages link accross NSI’s Hosting products for Diags.)
Anyway Big Fan of your outfit!
John: Good to hear from you John — I’ve been wondering what’s been going on with you. I had dinner last night with Hadi and Sherrie Bozorgmanesh, and your name came up. He had lost contact with you too, so your message is very timely. I gather you are spending time in San Francisco working on clean technology investments. I agree with you that this seems to be a very important thing to do at the present time. I don’t know that you’ll make a lot of money on it in the near term, but it’s clearly the future in energy. Maybe I’ll live to see the results of all this effort on alternative fuels within the next 10 years. Happy new year to you, your wife, and all the Greeks you see. Did you read my book? If so, what did you think? Right now, Mike Daniels, Peter Economy, and I are working on a book about the role Network Solutions played in the evolution of the modern Internet and World Wide Web. — Bob
Bob: I am an ex-SAIC employee-owner (1995-2005) from the Newport, RI office. I had the pleasure of meeting you at a CEO graduation function. I noticed you like to know who from SAIC has charged off in to the great unknowns of entrepreneurship and thought I would post here as our product, netblox, is a home/soho network internet security and content filtering hardware device. There could be interesting government applications for this device as well. We self-funded Zort Labs, Inc (http://www.zortlabs.com) and it has been very rewarding (and challenging). Thank you for the inspiration over the years and I sincerely hope our paths cross again.
James: Very interested to hear what you’re doing on your new product netblox. I trust you know my friend Rob Morton, who also has gone off to start his own alternative fuels company. Last I heard he was doing well. There are other types of devices on the market for filtering objectionable material from the Internet. I’d be curious to know why yours is better than other alternatives, not that I doubt that it is better. It’s all in the algorithms. — Bob
Stephen: I know that Network Solutions has an authentication program, and I assume it’s pretty good. I’m glad to see that they’re working on improving it. Are there problems with the one they use now? — Bob
Bob: I do know Rob but had not heard about his new company. I am planning a trip to Newport soon and will have to look him up. The device installed in the customer’s network is just a network bridge (transparent, no IP address) and we inspect the traffic flow through the bridge. The special sauce is the way we communicate with that device and perform the heavy lifting of content filtering, virus scanning, intrusion prevention, etc… at the server farm. This keeps the netblox device cost low and the physical/power footprint very small. The other advantage is all network-accessible devices are protected (Win, Mac, game consoles, PDAs) without any software installation. -Jim
Jim: I read with interest your response to my last post addressing the Zort product. If the device does what you feel it will do, you should be successful. I hope that happens. Please keep me informed on your progress. — Bob