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Re:The promise and paradox of decentralization by jayd16 on Friday November 05, 2021 @04:07PM (#29124168)
Certs are certainly decentralized. You can create your own root, share them, etc. There a several highly trusted roots that are chosen by OS makers, not centralized. Some roots are quite big but what part is centralized?

Chain of trust is a decentralized reputation protocol and we use it frequently and effectively.

Re:The promise and paradox of decentralization by rhn_mk1 on Friday November 05, 2021 @05:04PM (#29124728)
While it's not strictly centralized, as in, there's no single root, the sets of root certs in usage are extremely similar. There are only a handful that matter, and they overlap significantly because they share choices: Windows, Android, Apple, Firefox, various Linux distros.

A contributing factor is that the culture that grew around them makes it uncommon to be able to manipulate your own certificates. If you set up a Web page with your own root cert, you can be sure it will never grow.