I disagree with the current thinking that disclosures should be delayed. The thinking is short sighted. Those in the industry who push this, and it is probably the majority of those we hear, are looking out for the company that produced the product that has a flaw. Do we believe hackers are going to delay notifying other hackers about a flaw, to give the company a chance to correct the issue?

So what is the result of delaying?

Thoes who seek to cause harm immediately share information, resulting in widespread knowledge of flaws among those who are malicious. Thoes who seek to protect the company do not share, resulting in DBA's and other professionals not being aware of potential issues. Further, if the company affected decides the flaw isn't important, they may not even work on a fix for months, sometimes years. Sometimes, like in a well documented case involving a well known non-Microsoft media player with the initials RP, they deny it even exists even given evidence proving it does. In the meantime customers are at risk.

You appear to be suggesting a coordinated group that would investigate, identify, and report behind the scenes to companies with software flaws.

What makes us believe that group would identify risks sooner than hackers, or even all of the ones hackers find? Should they miss just one, or simply not have the power to encourage the company to fix it, there is no benefit to anyone, and much increased risk as customers are then putting more faith in the (very flawed) process. In the end, I think a fix to this process that doesn't work reliably, doesn't provide identification prior to anyone else, and that doesn't provide a reliable resolution, is worse than how it is today. The only way I see to make this work is for software vendors to release the product to this independent group, prior to public release, for sufficient time to allow all important holes to be closed. That just ain't gonna happen.