IBM, Intel, Microsoft form the Trusted Computing Group

By Alun Williams

Posted on 9 Apr 2003 at 10:58

AMD, Intel, HP, Sony, IBM and Microsoft are among the companies that have formed the Trusted Computing Group (TCG). Its aim is to improve security technology embedded within devices such as PCs, PDAs, servers and digital phones.

Member companies will develop and promote hardware security technologies, and software interfaces, that can work in a modular fashion across multiple platforms and devices. Specifically, its goal is to protect the security and privacy of data - what it describes as 'secure and trusted computing'.

Other companies involved include Atmel, Infineon, National Semiconductor, Nokia, Philips, Phoenix Technologies, ST Microelectronics, VeriSign and Wave Systems.

'The Trusted Computing Group's structure and broad membership will bring the industry together to focus on delivering easily-accessible specifications for trusted computing standards that will ultimately let people work, conduct transactions, and use computing devices with a new level of confidence,' states Jim Ward, the Chairman of the Trusted Computing Group.

'Open standards, widely supported, will accelerate the design, use, management, and adoption of standards-based trusted systems and solutions that are urgently needed to meet the challenges of an increasingly interconnected world,' he added, when announcing the formation of the group.

The members of TCG have agreed to cross-license patents with each other under 'reasonable and non-discriminatory (RAND) terms'. This is intended to help standardise the innovations resulting from TCG.

TCG has promised to adopt existing trusted computing specifications from the Trusted Computing Platform Alliance (TCPA). Furthermore, it says that for future hardware and software interface specifications it will try to ensure backward compatibility with TCPA specifications. All existing members of TCPA - nearly 200 of them - have been invited to join the new group.

You can find more info at TrustedComputingGroup.org