To further your point, an area completely outside of ICANN's purview, yet an area requiring governance is PKI. We are at the point where deployment of a PKI has moved beyond technical issues, becoming almost completely the policy & politics of "trust". Until the politicians broker the trust relationships, there is nothing technology can do.
since when are politicians trustworthy enough to broker trust relationships?
I'd put this a different way. Until PKIs are able to represent the rich diversity of trust relationships that exist in the real world, they are mere curiosities with marginal practical value.
Oh, please. Describe a trust relationship that cannot be represented using current PKI technology (PKIX certs, S/MIME signed messages, OpenPGP certs, OpenPGP signed messages, or SPKI certs). The lack of ability to represent the trust relationship is not what is stopping the PKIs.
--Paul Hoffman, Director --Internet Mail Consortium
