Microsoft and five security companies announced on Thursday that they would create an organization to promote the responsible publishing of information about software flaws. While many of the details have yet to be hammered out, the move marks the beginning of what could be the widespread emergence of ethical rules for security research. "There has been a need for industry convergence around a code of conduct for releasing exploits," said Eddie Schwartz, senior vice president and chief operating officer for security services firm Guardent, a founding member of the group. "We are going to form an organization to help us deal with the vulnerabilities. Ultimately, we want to develop some standards for releasing these things." The move, announced at Microsoft's Trusted Computing conference, had been widely expected.
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