You make the list for your node. There are published lists but they are only a recommendation by whoever published the list. You may use one or many lists and/o

You make the list for your node. There are published lists but they are only a recommendation by whoever published the list. You may use one or many lists and/or add/remove nodes how you see fit. So you dont need to trust them you should trust your own list. However its importation to understand that if you happen to add a few non-honest nodes they cant cause any real damage. Since your node checks all the rules and signatures itself it can not be tricked into accepting malicious transactions + once such a node would "lie" it would be publicly visible for anyone. The "lie" would be signed by that nodes identity. So everyone knows whom to remove from the list. Meaning every non-honest node has to act honest forever it will be forever "burned" because its known "evil" once it didn't act honest. >I created my own trust list It would exist alongside every other already published list. If your list doesn't have a huge overlap with other existing lists its de-facto irrelevant because that would mean your list only contains unknown nodes and no one would use it. >causes people to lose trust They dont have to trust the list publisher, damaging the list publishes reputation is somewhat pointless the list itself or better the nodes on there stay valid. Lets say there are nodes on the list that run since 8 years have low downtime and never once tired to somehow harm the network. That "trust" doesn't go away. In a sense time or age is a trust indicator that can not be forged. You would need to reasonably proof that the nodes identity actually got transferred to someone else who wants to use it to harm the network. And you would need to do this for every node on the list that you want people to remove. >Then I could take over the network with my “trusted” list. If your list contains mostly nodes that you operate/control. And a majority of the other nodes actually would use your list and your list alone (not combine it with the existing lists) then maybe you could reach the 80% quorum which could be considered "taking over". You could for example vote in an amendment to change the code the nodes run. But for that you have to publish the code first and then the amendment would need 2 weeks 80% votes to become active. Whatever is in that code if its bad and 80% vote for it anyway it would be obvious that the yes voting nodes are compromised and all the honest nodes, again, simply have to remove them. Realistically no one would even install the software update if its not going through the official GitHub where the involved devs would want time for audits and all that before someone installs it. Also would most likely be installed on the test net which is centralized so it can be enabled fast and everyone can test it. So the most damage someone could do if he successfully compromise lots of validator nodes is that he could stop the network possibly for several days because people have to remove the nodes manually to reach consensus again. It would of course be very bad but at the same time its incredibly unlikely to happen and there is not much incentive to even try. Its not like you could print money if you stop the network.