Trusted Information Systems Article Index for
Trusted
Website Links For
Information Systems
 

Information About

Trusted Information Systems




research and development organization during the 1980s and 1990s,
performing computer security research for organizations such as NSA ,
DARPA , ARL , AFRL , SPAWAR , and others.

TIS was founded in 1983 by NSA veteran Steve Walker , and at
various times employed several notable Information Security experts
including Steve Crocker , Marcus Ranum , and Carl Ellison . TIS
was headquartered in Glenwood, Maryland, in a surprisingly rural location;
the company was started in Walker's garage, and as the company grew,
rather than move to Baltimore or the Washington D.C. suburbs, land
next to Walker's house was purchased for a small office building.

TIS projects included Trusted Xenix , the first commercially available
B1 operating system; Trusted Mach , a research project that influenced
DTOS and eventually SELinux ; Domain and Type Enforcement (TE) which
likewise infuenced SELinux; the Fwtk Firewall Toolkit (the first open
source firewall software), which evolved into the Gauntlet Firewall ,
one of the first commercial firewall products; and a broad range of
Internet Standards, including S/MIME , SNMP , DNS , DNSSEC , and many others.

The first whitehouse.gov e-mail server was located at their headquarters.

TIS's operating system work directly affected BSD/OS , which the Gauntlet
Firewall was based on, as well as Linux , FreeBSD , and others.

The company went public in the late 1990s, and was acquired by
Network Associates , which later became PGP and McAfee ; TIS's final
resting place appears to be SPARTA, Inc. 's ISSO division, where what
remains of TIS Advanced Research and Engineering landed. TIS's primary
commercial product, the Gauntlet Firewall, was acquired from Network
Associates by Secure Computing Corporation (SCC), and is being integrated
into their next generation Sidewinder Firewall. Several curious twists of
fate had TIS acquired by NAI during its attempt to acquire PGP, which was
also acquired by NAI; similarly, SCC and TIS were fierce business
competitors at various points.