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"Cooperation" has often been a mixed bag in the field of security. Confidentiality restrictions or corporate growth goals often make the open exchange of information difficult, if not impossible. In more and more areas, however, companies are finding they can share certain types of information and achieve benefits. One example of the benefit of cooperation is the newly announced alliance of Network Associates Inc., Cisco Systems Inc. and Lucent Technologies Inc. to create The Security Research Alliance. The Alliance was touted in the Business Section of the January 20, 1999 San Jose Mercury News as "the industry's first cooperative effort to create better security measures for tomorrow's computing," by staff writer Janet Rae-Dupree.

Whether it was actually the first cooperative effort might be disputed, but it is a positive step by major companies to address a concern of interest and impact to us all. The article states that the Alliance plans to host a seminar in April to inform corporate security managers about the network security technology currently available to them and what to expect in the way of developments in the future. Anybody have any more info on this? Please share and we will publish in the March issue.

By Kathy Goelkel