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Having your certificate signed one time or three times or a hundred times doesn’t really change the dynamics of the problem at all. Without an authority you put

Having your certificate signed one time or three times or a hundred times doesn’t really change the dynamics of the problem at all. Without an authority you put the burden of authentication on the user (no matter what ceremony they use). This fact alone makes it a generally useless approach to PKI. The only thing the web of trust does is allow you to share that burden with a select number of people that you actually know and trust. If you try to extend the perimeter of the web beyond that, it just becomes a web of horribly misplaced trust. Reframing it as a web of reputation doesn’t change anything either.

Silhouette 6y ago
Having your certificate signed one time or three times or a hundred times doesn’t really change the dynamics of the problem at all. Just to clarify, I'm not necessarily talking anything as specific as signing a certificate. I'm talking about the problem of authentication in general, whatever mechanism it might use. Maybe we're talking at cross-purposes as I'm not sure exactly what problem you're trying to solve here, but my argument is that the main problem with existing CAs is that they represent single points of failure in several respects. Authenticating against multiple sources from a potentially larger pool does then change the dynamics in exactly two very important ways: it means neither the site host nor the site visitor is reliant on a single CA and thus a single potential point of failure any longer. This isn't a complete solution to all possible problems with the existing CA system, but it does offer a conceivable way to mitigate some known weaknesses in that system. Getting that far doesn't really even need a full web of trust system, just a mechanism for seeking confirmation from N of M ultimate authorities where N is chosen such that 1 < N < M with whatever safety margin on either end you deem appropriate. But a more comprehensive web of trust would potentially allow for a fully decentralised system in the sense that anyone could operate their own final authority but how much it was trusted would depend on the properties of the web (as would how much any default authorities included with browsers as standard were or potentially were not to be trusted).
- AmericanChopper 6y ago
  What you’re describing is not a known weakness in the CA system, and doesn’t even really touch on the actual known issues with implementing PKI. The CA is not a point of failure. If one CA fails to sign your certificate, you just get one from a different CA. If a CA that had already signed your certificate vanishes, nothing fails because your existing certificates do not suddenly become unsigned. The core issues with PKI are establishing trust. The only way to do that for most applications requires an authority. You’re not improving the system by requiring multiple authorities to sign every certificate. You’re not making things less authority-reliant or more resilient. You’re just making it more complicated, and leaving the real underlying issues around authentication unchanged.

Silhouette 6y ago

Having your certificate signed one time or three times or a hundred times doesn’t really change the dynamics of the problem at all. Just to clarify, I'm not necessarily talking anything as specific as signing a certificate. I'm talking about the problem of authentication in general, whatever mechanism it might use. Maybe we're talking at cross-purposes as I'm not sure exactly what problem you're trying to solve here, but my argument is that the main problem with existing CAs is that they represent single points of failure in several respects. Authenticating against multiple sources from a potentially larger pool does then change the dynamics in exactly two very important ways: it means neither the site host nor the site visitor is reliant on a single CA and thus a single potential point of failure any longer. This isn't a complete solution to all possible problems with the existing CA system, but it does offer a conceivable way to mitigate some known weaknesses in that system. Getting that far doesn't really even need a full web of trust system, just a mechanism for seeking confirmation from N of M ultimate authorities where N is chosen such that 1 < N < M with whatever safety margin on either end you deem appropriate. But a more comprehensive web of trust would potentially allow for a fully decentralised system in the sense that anyone could operate their own final authority but how much it was trusted would depend on the properties of the web (as would how much any default authorities included with browsers as standard were or potentially were not to be trusted).

AmericanChopper 6y ago
What you’re describing is not a known weakness in the CA system, and doesn’t even really touch on the actual known issues with implementing PKI. The CA is not a point of failure. If one CA fails to sign your certificate, you just get one from a different CA. If a CA that had already signed your certificate vanishes, nothing fails because your existing certificates do not suddenly become unsigned. The core issues with PKI are establishing trust. The only way to do that for most applications requires an authority. You’re not improving the system by requiring multiple authorities to sign every certificate. You’re not making things less authority-reliant or more resilient. You’re just making it more complicated, and leaving the real underlying issues around authentication unchanged.