SSL has endured for as long as it has, in contrast to a number of other protocols from the same vintage. SSL doesn t do any of the three very elegantly secretive things: secrecy, integrity, and authenticity. The designers of SSL chose to use the authenticity part of the authenticity process as a key component. SSL has been stuck with that decision even after having long outgrown the circumstances in which it was originally imagined. The EFF s SSL observatory project determined that there are currently 650 different organizations capable of signing certificates.
Source: https://threatpost.com/ssl-and-future-authenticity-041111/75125/