The reason is simple: trust.
Any website running HTTPS needs a special certificate that has been issued and signed by a publicly recognized certificate authority (CA). As such, a website visitor not only has to trust the website he's visiting but also that website's CA, because it's that entity which ensures that no MITM/phishing is going on.
However, since the CA is the only certificate provider, it might as well issue and sign certificates itself on behalf of the website owner and set up a fake copy of the original website. The user won't even notice it, because the CA is in its trusted list.
To circumvent this problem, one would need to get rid of external CAs and issue and sign certificates himself. And that's exactly what The Swiss Bay did.
This ensures that when you visit paranoid.theswissbay.ch through HTTPS, it's really The Swiss Bay and not a fake server. Why ? Because nobody can issue a valid certificate in our name, provided you ensure that the webpage you're on has its certificate issued by 'The Swiss Bay Root CA'.
From 01.05.2023
To get going, follow these steps:
gpg --keyserver hkp://keyserver.ubuntu.com --recv-keys B2D1F566BF9C655C0C19887B416FD4144343661F
or download it directly.gpg TSB_Issuing_CA.pem.asc
.TSB_Issuing_CA.pem
file into your browser using the guides above.
Until 30.04.2023
To get going, follow these steps:
gpg --keyserver hkp://keyserver.ubuntu.com --recv-keys B2D1F566BF9C655C0C19887B416FD4144343661F
or signed CA public key.gpg TSBRootCA.pem.asc
.TSBRootCA.pem
file into your browser using the guides above.Note: check back on this page in early 2026 as the CA will be renewed at that time.