A public-benefit institution, in formation. Brussels.
The Horus Foundation is being established in Belgium as an AISBL (international non-profit association), operating publicly under this name. This is a landing page, not yet a fully operational institution. We are building in the open, honestly, from the beginning. If you want to help — as a legal professional, as a researcher, as a donor, or as someone whose work touches what we are trying to steward — please write to us.
Horus Foundation exists to hold work that operates at a slower tempo than the commercial systems around it. Long-horizon research, legal support for independent security researchers, and continuity tools for the systems our successors will inherit — three programmes that share a common premise: some commitments need to be carried by an institution designed for that pace, structurally separated from the faster layers that would otherwise compromise them.
Different layers of human activity move at different speeds. Markets learn quickly; infrastructure changes slowly; governance changes more slowly still; the integrity of evidence and the rights of researchers and the durability of records operate on a horizon longer than any of them. Each layer needs its own protections. Horus is built for the slower ones.
We do not believe in institutional immortality. We believe in honourable transitions, and in the quiet hands that hold the signal between cycles. Resilient, not eternal.
Independent governance for long-horizon research projects whose integrity depends on being held by an institution with no commercial stake in the outcome. The foundation holds intellectual property, methodology commitments, and public-benefit continuity for studies that must remain answerable to the evidence rather than to any single funder, vendor, or sector.
The first such study under the foundation's stewardship is the Sharla Perrine Memorial Internet Resiliency Study, examining the coherence of internet-scale time infrastructure under partial migration. The study is funded by sponsors directly to the foundation, with no contributor or funder holding a veto over its findings.
Independent security researchers do work that matters. They find the vulnerabilities that vendors miss, publish the research that moves the field forward, and often do so at personal and professional risk — with no institutional backing when things go wrong. When a researcher faces legal threat for doing legitimate work, the outcome is often determined not by the merits but by who can afford to fight.
This programme provides referrals, selective discretionary assistance, and other forms of support to independent security researchers facing legal action arising from their research, where the disclosure was conducted in good faith — including, where applicable, after a responsible disclosure process toward the affected vendor. We do not guarantee representation or funding. Each request is assessed on the circumstances and the foundation's capacity at the time.
This programme does not accept funding from vendors, platform companies, or other parties whose interests would be in direct tension with researcher protection. Programme funding comes from the structural commitment described below.
Tools, archives, and documentation designed to be handed down. This programme supports work on infrastructure timing resilience (including the 2038 epoch transition), post-collapse-capable tooling, and the careful documentation of systems and decisions for the people who will inherit them — including those we will never meet.
The premise is straightforward. The systems we are building now will outlast the contexts that produced them. The choices we are making now will be inherited by people who had no part in making them. The documentation, the tooling, and the operational discipline must be designed for that.
Built not to last forever, but to be handed down cleanly.
Each programme has its own funding posture. We name them separately to keep the lines clean.
Researcher Legal Support receives five percent of Proper Tools SRL's operating margin, before distribution of profit. This is a structural commitment, not a discretionary donation, and it is dedicated to this programme alone.
Resilience Research Stewardship is funded by external study sponsors directly to the foundation. Proper Tools may participate as an operational contributor to specific studies but does not fund this programme.
Long-Horizon Continuity is supported by donations, grants, and fiscal sponsorship arrangements as appropriate to specific projects within the programme.
No single funder may dominate any programme, hold a veto over findings, or direct the research agenda. Where conflicts of interest would be structural rather than incidental — for example, parties whose interests would be in direct tension with researcher protection — the relevant programme does not accept their funding. The programmes are funded separately by design: what is given to one is not used to underwrite another, and the structural separation between the foundation and its operational affiliate is not a matter of bookkeeping convention but of governance integrity.
Horus Foundation will be governed by an independent board accountable to the foundation's public-benefit mission. The board is in formation; most members have been identified and engaged. No single programme contributor, funder, or affiliated entity will hold a veto over foundation decisions.
Independent legal counsel and audit oversight are structural rather than optional. Findings of foundation-stewarded research are published under open licenses (CC BY) or under TLP:GREEN coordination conventions where pre-disclosure handling is appropriate. Records are kept with the durability appropriate to a public-benefit institution: legible to those reviewing the work today, and to those who may need to audit it decades from now.
If you think we may be able to help — or if you want to contribute, collaborate, or simply ask a question — please write to us: hello@horusfoundation.net
We read everything. We will tell you honestly whether we can help.
This foundation is dedicated to the memory of Felix "FX" Lindner (1977–2026) — founder of Recurity Labs, member of Phenoelit, mentor to many, and the kind of security researcher this foundation exists to safeguard, support, and learn from. He believed that security is ultimately about keeping people safe. So do we.