Four major information security and networking equipment vendors announced they have formed a ‘Security Research Alliance’ with the aim of promoting understanding of security technology, such as firewall authentication and encryption, among corporate IT decision-makers and accelerating the development of technology through collaborative research. The group, which consists of Cisco Systems Inc, Lucent Technologies Inc, Network Associates Inc and Sun Microsystems Inc plans to hold annual education forums – which the companies call Crystal Ball Symposiums – that will explain the technical detail and business relevance of technology developments to attending IT managers. The first of these jointly funded Symposiums will be held on April 13 in Los Angeles on the eve of the Spring Internet World ’99 conference where a keynote address will be made by a representative from the US Government’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). The Alliance will be chaired by representatives from one of the member companies on a one year term basis. The organizations first chairman is Dr Terry Benzel, vice president of the NAI Labs Advanced Security Research Division at Network Associates. A spokesperson from NAI Labs said membership of the exclusive alliance is by peer review of corporations which meet a number of criterion. First, applicants must be engaged in advanced security research, not necessarily tied to product development. Second, the companies must have standing in industrial and scientific research circulations through published academic white papers. Finally, relevant high standing in industry is required. The measure of the last of these criterion is not yet fully determined, it will be finalized at a meeting of the member companies in a meeting scheduled for February. At present there or two three applicants, one of which is Intel Corp. But a decision on membership will not be made until after the member meeting in February.
