How Microsoft is Reinventing the Connected World Through Trustworthy Computing

When Bill Gates founded the Trustworthy Computing initiative within Microsoft 10 years ago, the computing world was very different.

There were no social networks to glue people together, and streaming video of the sort that we have today was still a dream. As for mobile devices, PDAs were around, but in comparison to the iPhone and Android smartphones of today, these early devices offered limited functionality.

In response to the changing web and mobile climate, along with the increasing threat of ‘hacktivists,’ Scott Charney, corporate vice president of the Microsoft Trustworthy Computing division, is revisiting the four pillars of the initiative.

Charney offered up his renewed vision in a presentation at the 2012 RSA conference and also in a white paper. He explained his new agenda in a blog post:

Recognizing these challenges, each pillar of TwC must evolve. In security, we must adopt a more holistic security strategy that encompasses prevention, detection, containment and recovery. In privacy, we must understand what it means to live in a highly connected, device-laden and data-rich world, and craft fair information principles that serve the twin goals of unlocking the power of big data while protecting privacy effectively.

In reliability, we need to leverage engineering intelligence and pursue recovery-oriented computing, thus creating products and services that respond with agility when things fail and help ensure the reliability of devices and services notwithstanding the complexity, interconnectedness and dependencies that now exist in our information systems. Finally, by being open and transparent in our business practices, we can engender the trust of those dependent on information technology.

For more about Trustworthy Computing, read Charney’s full post on the official Microsoft blog.