I'd argue that the CA system is false authentication because it's fairly easy for the right players to tamper with. In that case, unauthenticated/encrypted tran

I'd argue that the CA system is false authentication because it's fairly easy for the right players to tamper with. In that case, unauthenticated/encrypted transport is only a little less safe than "authenticated"/encrypted transport, but with the latter giving a higher illusion of safety than the former. The only real trust that would work is distributed trust. The CA system is kind of a joke. That said, yes, it does protect coffee shop HTTPS browsing better than a self-signed cert.