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 ne

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).