If you have ever done any security work - and it did not involve the concept of "network of trust" - it wasn't security work, it was - masturbation. I don't know what you were doing. But trust me, it's the only way you can do security, it's the only way you can do development.
Some missionaries bound for Africa were laughed at by the boat captain. 'You'll only die over there,' he said. But a missionary replied, 'Captain, we died before we started. '