[koopmenistan]

So this one time I was tasked to verify a complaint of child pornography and image the infrastructure for evidentiary purposes, if necessary. It was the first time I’d ever been exposed to it as a naïve operations kid at a hosting provider.

Imagine my surprise and horror to find that not only was the complaint accurate, it led to a completely polished thumbnail site on par with PornHub. Boom, right there, no login. No nothing. Five high, seven wide thumbnails. No two of the same child. A complete search engine based on Solr that could filter the thousands of images by age of the victim. By the number of adults participating in the rape. A threaded comment section on each image where people discussed children in their neighborhood and their fantasies of abducting them. An erotic literature section where parents wrote about how they’ve been sexually attracted to their children since changing their first diaper.

I’ll never forget a photo of two men brutally raping a girl of about 9 or 10, because it was one of the highest voted on the site. One of the comments, which I still remember when I close my eyes at night, simply said “its better when they cry”. It’s been eleven years and I’ve seen and dealt with much more of it since then, and I still weep to this day thinking about the pain inflicted on those children, the pure evil of those who enjoy it, and even the design and engineering team who bafflingly put their skills toward building that nadir of human achievement.

Tell me again what “the real abuse” is and educate me, please, because you sound pretty confident that the frighteningly common story I just told isn’t that big of a deal. I can’t believe anyone sane would compare going through your photo collection, even egregiously, to the rape and exploitation of children and think, yeah, you know, based on my value system door number one is the “much worse” injustice. Your opinion is fucking sickening and the exact type of detached inhumanity that is poisoning this industry top to bottom.

[zionic]

Interesting that you chose to so thoroughly explore such a heinous site when all you had to do was image it and provide a copy to the authorities. More interesting that you then depict its graphic content in such detail here.

Perhaps a thorough search of your hard drives and NAS are in order citizen. No need to report to your local precinct, we've already pushed the updated scan list to your devices for analysis.

Remember, every scan just renews your innocence!

[laserlight]

So, just because there are sick and terrible people, we should give away our freedom and privacy?

[koopmenistan]

It’s quite telling that my story described graphic sexual assault of children and you immediately forgot about the victims and made it about the perpetrators. Probably because if you had instead asked:

“So, just because children are being raped, we should give away our freedom and privacy?”

...your ground wouldn’t be as perceptibly firm, even though it’s exactly the question you’re asking. I’m also not going to respond because of the obvious incongruity and false dichotomy of the question, that aside. To be honest, I’d rather you have kept that question to yourself, and I’d go further and speculate that sentiment would apply to most opinions you hold.

[idunnoman]

It's not telling at all.

Not a single person arguing against this idea is being obtuse or insensitive to the very real problem of CSAM.

This is why you are getting the eye roll induced "think of the children" arguments. Yes, we get it. We agree. It's bad. We don't like it either.

But this isn't going to solve anything and IS going to break security and privacy.

It's a bad trade.

[koopmenistan]

>> Pushing Spyware Engine is literally abuse to all people including children and it's much worse then any problem they would claim to fight. Even if you believe them.

>> It is an attempt to legalize such Spyware Engine installation. Nothing more. The story is just to sell this move using emotional response from naive people.

>> Those people should be educated what the real abuse is and they should teach their children to recognize it because abuse by Apple is already there and it is much worse then the problem they claim are trying to solve.

> Not a single person arguing against this idea is being obtuse or insensitive to the very real problem of CSAM.

Not a single one, huh? Are you certain? I made sure to emphasize the six times lovelyviking dismissed or minimized child sexual abuse as a concern for you in case you somehow missed all six of them the first time through. Which is weird, too, because they repeated the same point a couple times to make sure we heard them loud and clear.

[idunnoman]

Yeah - fair point. I've over stated my position.

I'll re-commit to "most" people criticizing.

I will restate that regardless of the poor taste, it doesn't change the points validity.

But you are correct. I did miss their minimization of the issue. Obviously due to my own bias.

[salawat]

> will restate that regardless of the poor taste, it doesn't change the points validity.

Just wanted to point out a oft overlooked tidbit for the non-philodophers in the room.

Validity only conveys that an argument has proper form. There are many valid arguments that are nevertheless bull, because while they have valid structure, they do not follow from true premises. You should not be pursuing mere validity, but soundness. The state of having valid structure, and following from true premises. I also try to go for complete as well, meaning one has admitted all relevant evidence to the topic at hand, but that tends to be more of a rhetorical drawing of the line.

No one questions there are awful people out there. God only knows, I've had my share of of awful things found on computers I've been the steward for. At the end of the day though, I have to weigh my utility as a means of control and oppression against my normative moral compass and axiomatic underpinnings of how the world works. Mine tell me that there will never be a shortage of people willing to keep those people in check without handing to governments the foundations of population scale control mechanisms. The difficulty of mitigating a government in the process of abusing one of those is way higher than merely being a proactive when the situation warrants.

Solve problems at the level they are best solved. Centralization is almost never the answer except in questions enforcement of control, or applying leverage against someone else's will.

It might make me odd, but I can still look at something vile like CSAM scanning, and recognize it for what it is: violent non-consensual violation of what is expected to be private for the furthering of a small groups political aspirations.

I condemn this no less than I would dragnetting abolitionists, whistleblowers, revolutionaries, or other agents of change.

I assure you, there has been much sleep lost in contemplating whether my moral compass has gotten screwed over time. I don't take these issues lightly. I care about it so much that any doubt on my part is grounds for immediate high intensity scrutiny. Yet I keep coming to the same outcome. This. Is. Wrong. On so many levels, and in so many ways.

[ayewo]

You write that:

> It’s quite telling that my story described graphic sexual assault of children and you immediately forgot about the victims and made it about the perpetrators. Probably because if you had instead asked:

“So, just because children are being raped, we should give away our freedom and privacy?”

I think the frame being used to discuss the issue is the problem.

CSAM is the product of abuse/exploitation of children and that in turn is a symptom of a more serious problem: the growing prevalence of people with depraved minds who only get a slap on the wrist when they are caught, instead of a being punished with a strong deterrent.

Once the punishment for child abuse or exploitation is commensurate with the crime, demand for CSAM will plummet.

Blanket scanning of people's devices is a technological solution to a problem that is inherently social—it is trying to treat the symptom instead of the actual ailment.