I should not like to think anyone mistook me to be arguing in favor of restrictions on cryptography in general, because someone might use it in the commission or furtherance of a crime.

But responding to a case where cryptography is (maybe) used to conceal evidence of possession and/or distribution of child pornography, with, and I paraphrase, "why do we care about this kind of nonsense?", does not advance the cause of encouraging moderate legislation and jurisprudence on this subject.

At the very best, it makes one who advances such an argument look like so completely detached a privacy absolutist as to defend even the vilest of crimes in cases where it might overlap with his pet issue in a potentially negative way.

At only slightly less than the very best, it opens anyone who advances such an argument to allegations of wanting the distribution of child pornography to proceed untrammeled by law, and to those allegations being supported by citation of arguments like 'coldtea's, made in threads like this one.

I get that many here are very theoretically minded sorts, and that, being "systems thinkers", are much happier designing the perfect system of laws and judgment on a clean sheet of paper, rather than dealing with anything so messy as the diversity of politics and opinions which has such a significant impact in reality. I used to be such a person myself. It didn't help me understand a damn thing about the world in which we all actually live, and it made me a pointless nuisance rather than an effective agent in convincing people that even such a hot-button issue as child pornography is not an excuse to abandon all nuance.

I don't demand that my interlocutors, here or elsewhere, develop the same understanding, although I think it'd be a brilliant idea if they did. But I do ask, at minimum, that when they say ill-thought-out and pointlessly absolutist things which tend to make it harder for me to actually convince actual people that at-rest encryption is not dangerous but compelling those accused of criminal activity to divulge encrypted data is, they not act so surprised when I push back on that.

> At the very best, it makes one who advances such an argument look like so completely detached a privacy absolutist as to defend even the vilest of crimes

Oh come on, now who's being hyperbolic. Possession of child porn is clearly not the vilest of crimes, as child molestation is obviously much, much worse. And don't pretend like those are remotely the same.

I intended that to refer to both child pornography and child sexual abuse, although I appreciate I could've been more clear there.

And in any case, I don't think I strayed very far, if at all, into hyperbole, even taken verbatim. Child pornography may not be the same thing as child molestation, but it's still plenty vile nonetheless.

> Child pornography may not be the same thing as child molestation, but it's still plenty vile nonetheless.

More hyperbole. You really think young cartoon characters conducting sexual acts, which is illegal child porn, is as vile as perfectly legal scat porn? Or is your claim once again hyperbolic because, a) it's not your sexual preference, and b) you assumed, wrongly, that everything classified as child porn is necessarily harmful to children?

Where have I said anything of the sort? For all the accusations of hyperbole you're throwing around, you sure do seem to be more inclined to answer the points I haven't made than to answer those I have.

I'm responding to the literal meaning of your words. No one can divine your intended meaning.

You even said that my interpretation of your literal words was not far from your intent, and doubled-down on your claim that child porn is almost as vile as child molestation. I then pointed out that some cartoons are considered child porn, and contrasted that with legal porn that's also widely considered to be vile, then asked if you stand by your claim that underage cartoon sex is really more vile than this type of legal porn (which doesn't even touch on the issue of why vileness is a meaningful metric of legality, as opposed to something obviously meaningful like harm).

So I can't see how I'm arguing in bad faith.

US federal law [1], per the Department of Justice, disagrees:

> Visual depictions include photographs, videos, digital or computer generated images indistinguishable from an actual minor...

No language exists to include depictions of the sort you describe, which are trivially distinguishable from an actual minor.

Perhaps you argue from the law of a specific US state, but you need in that case to name the state on whose laws you base your argument, and explain why they have a stronger bearing on the matter at hand than the laws of the nation entire.

If you're going to continue to accuse me of engaging in hyperbole, authoritarianism, ignorant pseudoscientific wittering, and whatever else you can think of, that is of course your privilege, and I would never dream of suggesting you demur. But will you please leaven it a bit with actual substance, as in your comment full of rich, meaty counter-citations to my hypothesis around reinforcement, a comment which I look forward to perusing? That was an excellent comment, and I appreciate it! Quite aside from the tantalizing possibility of learning something new and thus improving my understanding of reality, one does eventually grow tired of the same thing over and over; a bit of variety appeals.

[1] https://www.justice.gov/criminal-ceos/citizens-guide-us-fede...

Tell that to the people actually serving time for cartoon child porn:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_status_of_drawn_pornogra...

The, what, half-dozen or so of them, almost all of whom actually did possess, and were charged with crimes revolving around, actual child pornography as well?

I think people can argue all they want about making exceptions to various beliefs in various circumstances but I for one am happy privacy absolutists and people like RMS and the like exist.

Police have more than enough tools to catch people using encryption without the ability to compel people to decrypt data. At the end of the day if you have to try force someone to enter a password or fetch you a key then you already fucked up and should have to admit your failure and try assemble a case with what you were able to get before you fucked it up by not getting the data in-flight or otherwise unencrypted.