With SSL, who can you really trust?

If any link in one of these chains of trust is compromised, attackers could acquire false certificates for sites. These invalid certificates could be used to trick browsers into trusting them, and that sets browser-to-server communications up for man-in-the-middle attacks.

The moment Perspectives serves only 30,000 users

At the moment Perspectives serves only 30,000 users, an insignificant percentage of users making SSL certificate checks on the Internet, Andersen says. To replace the current SSL authentication system would require a worldwide network of maybe hundreds of notary servers akin to the network of DNS servers. Nevertheless, he says, the tasks they would be asked to perform are simpler and fewer servers would be needed.