Antonio Mana Gomez wrote:
You mean that we should be glad that the company that produced the
browser has saved us the effort of finding who to trust, registering,
configuring and all those tedious procedures?
<much more of the same excised>
Let me cut through all the rhetoric with two simple analogies. They are
intended to be heuristic, not syllogistic. Hopefully they will close this
sub-discussion.
1. Web of trust is like trusting a friend, without which personal relations
would be difficult. People aren't going to get a Visa logo on their foreheads
for this. Open PGP developers should, I assert, focus on maximizing their
model's efficiency and ease of use for this model and not try to move further
to a mixed model.
2. Rigid hierarchical is like the major credit card certifiers, without which
effective transaction systems at scale would be difficult. People aren't going
to roll their own credit cards for this. S/MIME 3 developers should, I assert,
focus on maximizing their model's efficiency and ease of use for this model
and not try to move further to a mixed model.
Each has its place. Corrupting either leads to its losing some of its unique
advantages. For instructive details consult any good text on the evolution of
national banking systems, or the appropriate chapters in introductory
economics texts.
David