This is no time to adopt the omerta

Ask security industry insiders about the Trusted Computing Group and you'll find no shortage of opinions on the work of this standards body.

But if you ask the average chief information officer, my hunch is that most won't have a clue. That is a real problem.

TCG is merely a standards body so it doesn't have a pile of dough to educate the market. But companies involved in the organization figure among the richest in the IT industry. (A short list includes Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Intel and Microsoft.) Unfortunately, most TCG members don't even mention their companies' participation in their sales and marketing material. Instead, they've been content to exhibit a wait-and-see approach.

This is especially true as it relates to a TCG open effort that competes with similar activities organized by Cisco and Microsoft. Networking companies prefer to keep a low profile so as not to offend these two computing mega-powers.

This industry code of silence is insane.

TCG is working on ambitious standards for trust and security up and down the entire technology stack. All the pieces will eventually fit nicely together even if they're not all yet perfect. Shouldn't large organizations have the information to judge for themselves before they get railroaded down some proprietary security rat hole?

It would be self-defeating for the technology industry to focus on profitability and vendor lock-in at the expense of the security of customers. There's simply no sound reason for the IT industry not to support TCG and spread the word.