I'm not defending the CA model; there are lots of known problems. But using a CA-signed cert before pinning it is way better than blindly trusting whatever cer

I'm not defending the CA model; there are lots of known problems. But using a CA-signed cert before pinning it is way better than blindly trusting whatever cert you get on your first connection, which is the OP's suggestion wrt SSCs. > Things that also work like this that we all rely on and generally seems more secure than most other things we use: SSH. When was the last time you verified a certificate's fingerprint out of band when connecting to a server for the first time? Maybe you're the kind of person who scrupulously does this, but in my experience even paranoid computer types don't, to say nothing of regular people. > I believe moxie was right, a combination of perspectives + TOFU is the way to do this. +1, it's hard to go wrong listening to Moxie.