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Most real-world authentication protocols rely on some kind of trusted authentication service to attest to endpoint identities. The obvious problem here is the word "trusted"; if the authentication service misbehaves, then the whole system breaks down.

The solution that the ecosystem has converged on is something called a "transparency system", and in the case of the WebPKI "certificate transparency". Instead of trying to prevent misbehavior by CAs, a transparency system tries to make it detectable.

The basic idea is to require every certificate has to be published, thus allowing sites -- or services on their behalf -- to detect (at least in principle) when a certificate has been misissued