Annoyed by 2-Factor Authentication? Help is on the way, and a 25% tax credit for semiconductors

[As heard on WGAN 2021-06-23]

You getting annoyed with these multi-factor authentication things where they're sending you a text, et cetera? So is Matt. We talked about what is coming pretty soon, frankly, that we'll get. Not only the multi-factor authentication being needed, but also even the passwords. We also got into this whole Senate debate about a 25% tax credit for semiconductor manufacturing.

[00:00:28] Why do they think it's needed and what are we going to do? So here we go with Mr. Matt. And of course me, Craig Peterson

[00:00:36] Matt Gagnon: [00:00:36] Well, you hear his voice here every Wednesday. You also hear it on Saturdays at one o'clock. Craig Peterson, our tech guru joins us. Now, once again, Craig, how are you?

[00:00:46] Craig Peterson: [00:00:46] Hey, I'm doing great, Matt.

[00:00:48] Matt Gagnon: [00:00:48] Good to have you as always. So I'm going to start off with a simple question for you, Craig, unrelated to any of the topics we're going to get to. But this morning I had to log into something using two factor identification. Can we do something else that's better than the. Is it, is there a less annoying way of being Uber secure in LA talking into stuff then having to like, like you go on Facebook, you try to log in with a password.

[00:01:10] Then it says you have to get a two factor identification. It has to send a text message to my phone. I've got to pick up my phone. I got to log into my phone, check the text message. See what the number is, use that number, type it into the thing on the, I can't take it anymore. Is there a better way? Probably not, right?

[00:01:30] Craig Peterson: [00:01:30] Yeah. There, there are better ways that are under testing right now. Really. They're a universal log-in sort of a thing. There are of course, password managers, which don't make that much easier. W frankly, if you're concerned really concerned about your security should never use text messages for two factor authentication, but Microsoft, Google, and apple have actually gotten together over the last year and come up with a standard.

[00:01:58] So there is a new standard in place, but sites like Facebook and many others still have not adopted it. We're actually heading to. Passwordless future where there is not even a password, let alone the two factor thing, and it's all handled locally by your browser. So those days are coming, Matt, they're just not here yet.

[00:02:19] Someday

[00:02:20] Matt Gagnon: [00:02:20] I can, man, can dream. Craig Peterson joins us on Wednesdays to talk over whatever it is. That's stuck in my crock today. Let me start off with one of the stories that we are prepared to talk about here a little bit, which is about the semiconductor shortage, right? There's a lot of ideas on how to do something about that.

[00:02:37]And right now in the Congress, our betters in in government are debating and talking about the idea of proposing some 25% tax credit for semiconductor manufacturing, obviously in response. To the ridiculous shortage that we have in these particular items. Tell me about this proposal.

[00:02:55] Is it something that might solve the problem?

[00:02:58]Craig Peterson: [00:02:58] That is, I love that statement there, Matt, by the way, just an hour. Better

[00:03:05] Matt Gagnon: [00:03:05] dripping with sarcasm.

[00:03:06] Craig Peterson: [00:03:06] Yeah. Yeah. That's exactly. Yeah. There, they're trying to get manufacturing back to the U S and in fact, it's already happening because businesses because of free market.

[00:03:18] Somewhat free market forces are deciding they cannot rely necessarily on having most of our chips made in Taiwan, frankly, as are, most of them are. And so we've now got Congress in the form of the Senate who are trying to figure out a way, how can we incentivize these companies to get back. So they went ahead and approve 52 billion.

[00:03:44] Dollars of course from their pocket change, right? It's from their staff for producing and research scenes, semiconductors and telecommunications equipment and figuring out what should be done. They even earmarked another $2 billion dedicated to trying to get ships that are used by automakers to be manufactured here in the U S now, is it going to.

[00:04:10]Probably, but we see some major drops here in manufacturing, in the us all across the board. Semiconductor microelectronics productions fallen to 12% of all of our production is made here in the us. The rest is overseas and that's down from almost 40% made here in the us in 1990s. So we'll see. It is a big problem, but I got to tell you, Matt, I don't think if this, because it's a big problem, that means it's the federal government.

[00:04:44] Matt Gagnon: [00:04:44] So do you have any other ideas on solutions then? If I, cause I agree with you. Generally speaking, anytime Congress attempts to try to manipulate markets. I get queasy and it's because there's always unintended consequences when they do that. And it's usually it perverts markets and never everything about it is bad.

[00:04:59]So is there a better way of trying to, fix the problem a, because clearly there's shortages of a lot of things, but then B this notion of security, you don't want all of the very critical infrastructure that you need production. Things, the products that make us go in our society produced somewhere that makes us vulnerable.

[00:05:17]Taiwan were to be blown up by China, that would present a problem for us. So what do you do instead?

[00:05:24] Craig Peterson: [00:05:24] It would absolutely would I, again, I think free market forces can work. They do work. But I also looked at this and say, our we're our whole country is dependent on having these as you pointed out.

[00:05:38] And therefore, frankly, this should be treated as a national defense emergency. We need to be doing it here in the U S we already have it. We're still a war, we never declared the end over the last war. So we still have this, our arms production laws in place and can force businesses to make things.

[00:05:58] I don't know that's the best idea, particularly with this, but we. To treat it differently. We cannot get chips for some of our fighter jets. In fact, we bought chips from China, inadvertently for our fighters that had malware built into the chips that were going into some of our military hearts. So I think the federal government is looking at this all wrong.

[00:06:26] They're also looking at this Taiwan, semiconductor manufacturing company, TSMC, which is the big guy in Taiwan. They're building the $12 billion semiconductor factory in Arizona. We've also got a jet Dutch chip maker. That's moving here to the us. We have other companies that are reactivating these old semiconductor plants, so it's happening.

[00:06:51] But I think we've got to look at this as a national defense. It's the same thing with our steel production, our aluminum production, much of this that we've allowed to go to other countries, as you said, might get blown up. Might not like this in the future. I will, we've got to take a much different approach as businesses and as the government.

[00:07:13] Matt Gagnon: [00:07:13] Hey, Craig Peterson, our tech guru joins us at this time every Wednesday, Craig, before I let you go, I also want to ask you about the general motors decision to start developing hydrogen fuel cells. This stuff is catnip for me. I love stories like this developing technology. Very interesting. What you say.

[00:07:29]Craig Peterson: [00:07:29] Of course people you're coming to mind, hydrogen and that little incidents in New Jersey in 1937, we've come a long way since the Hindenburg and GM came up with these hydrogen fuel cells for cars. Love the idea of hydrogen. There is one ultimate by-product and that is pure water. GM is saying we haven't had that much luck in the automotive industry.

[00:07:57] Where else can we use it? And they're looking at airplanes saying these planes take off with two tons of water on board, just to him. The toilets and the hand washing your hands, et cetera. And they also of course, are burning jet fuel in order to create electricity. So if we put a little hydrogen fuel cell on board, first of all, we can make these things.

[00:08:19] So they're intrinsically safe, but we're also now able to generate. On board, pure water has we're fly and any excess, or you can just dump overboard basically. And so we're saving two tons on takeoff weight and we're generating electricity. I think this is a very cool idea. And these fuel cells are going to be flying a little later this year in some test markets.

[00:08:44]Matt Gagnon: [00:08:44] If I, if they're saving all this weight on takeoff and I expect to be able to take it. Bag onto the onto the airplane. Right?

[00:08:51] Craig Peterson: [00:08:51] So they're not compensating for us getting a little heavier.

[00:08:57] Matt Gagnon: [00:08:57] All right. Craig Peterson, our tech guru joins us at this time every Wednesday. It's good luck on Saturday, Craig.

[00:09:02] Thanks so much for joining us as always. And we'll talk to you again next week.