Systems and methods are provided for distributing trust among a set of certificate authorities. One approach provides methods and systems in which the secure data parser is used to distribute trust in a set of certificate authorities during initial negotiation of a connection between two devices. Another approach provides methods and systems in which the secure data parser is used to disperse packets of data into shares. A set of tunnels is established within a communication channel using a set of certificate authorities, keys developed during the establishment of the tunnels are used to encrypt shares of data, and the shares of data are transmitted through each of the tunnels.