Major players in software encryption are no less dependent on reputation.
And many are from very major players, such as Intel and Dell. Everybody has been buying up security companies.
Dell is proving to be part of the problem. I wouldn’t trust any major players any more than I could get a job working for one of them. Thawte, Verisign, Entrust, StartCom: they’re major players in encryption and trustworthy. Intel, Dell, HP, Microsoft, even Apple are in it for themselves. They’ll make a deal with the devil if it means they can continue to do business in the US. If that means building backdoors for the NSA, they’ll help any way they can.