abstract:In cryptography, a web of trust is a concept used in PGP, GnuPG, and other OpenPGP-compatible systems to establish the authenticity of the binding between a public key and its owner. Its decentralized trust model is an alternative to the centralized trust model of a public key infrastructure (PKI), which relies exclusively on a certificate authority (or a hierarchy of such).
Even figuring out who to consult for advice can pose a problem: Should you trust reviews from full-time gadget reviewers or consult the ever-growing number ofWeb sites that solicit opinions from their amateurs?