RSA Conference 2012: Trustworthy Internet Movement launched to spur collaboration

Qualys has thrown its weight behind the Trustworthy Internet Movement (TIM), an organisation that aims to resolve the internet's most intractable security issues via collaboration and innovation.

The vendor-neutral, not-for-profit organisation has officially been launched on the RSA Conference in San Francisco and is now inviting participation and investment from around the industry.

The launch comes at the tenth anniversary of Bill Gates's memo that caused the inspiration of Microsoft Trustworthy Computing.

Drawing on individual talent in large corporations, cloud providers and industry groups, in addition to tapping into the resources of technology leaders and the venture capital community, TIM will fund and foster collaborative innovation through working groups; specialist knowledge from "the brightest and best within the industry" can be used to steer and support working group developments.

The founding principal of TIM is Philippe Courtot, chairman and CEO of Qualys, who personally pledged $500,000 (£313,000) to get the initiative off the bottom.

“With two billion people counting on the net for a lot in their personal and business lives, it's incumbent upon the industry to place its collective heads together and resolve the issues of online security, privacy and reliability once and for all. This is often now not just an argument of technology but of society as a complete,” he said.

“We have a singular opportunity with the rapid spread of cloud-based services to leverage the ability of the industry and the broader community of internet users to solve the problems which might be holding back the net from fulfilling its true potential.”