SSL/TLS Certificates: Threat or Menace?

The security of SSL/TLS as used in practice depends on the security of the certificate hierarchy used to authenticate the servers. However, recent events have called the adequacy of that system into question: typical browsers trust a large number of root certificate authorities (trust anchors), and compromise of any of those anchors leads to the ability to impersonate more or less any server, as was demonstrated by the recent Comodo incident. Our panelists will talk about the state of the SSL/TLS authentication system, its future, and the various proposals for improvement and/or replacement.