Well, for one thing, in order for the hideous crime to have real world impact it needs to by definition exist somewhere beyond just the onion site.

Otherwise it literally just is information.

Information can be harmful. For example, people who were raped as a child do not want footage of that rape distributed as a masturbation aid, and yet numerous dark web sites are dedicated to exactly this.

It reminds of how EU can order facebook to delete its posts for the entire world, because EU wants to control what other people outside of EU are allowed to see.

https://www.euractiv.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/10/...

They might not want it, but I do not see how it is harmful, it does not affect them at all after all. They could as well live their whole lives without knowing that their images are online. It is pretty similar to piracy if you think about it. Some people thinking they are entitled to dictate if and how certain numbers are used and distributed.

You are essentially advocating for a society without a right to privacy which while logically consistent is an extremist position not shared by the vast majority of people

I would consider a society in which you are not allowed to communicate with others without the government getting access to be one without a right to privacy. It's interesting how we can come to polar opposite conclusions about the implications of this technology.

(It seems that the difference may be in what exactly we consider to be a privacy violation. I would say that in the child-pornography case, the victim's privacy has been destroyed the moment the pictures have been observed and recorded by the abuser, and further reproduction is not a privacy violation because there is no privacy in the pictures left to violate. Since Tor and co. have no impact on the ability of a child pornographer to make the initial recording, they are an unalloyed good for privacy.)

> further reproduction is not a privacy violation because there is no privacy in the pictures left to violate

Is this honestly how you'd feel about footage of someone you know being raped?? It should not be illegal to distribute it...? Can you explain precisely what you think the law should be?

I don't know how you get that out of my post. Privacy violation is not the only grounds on which something may be illegal.

You just infiltrate the site and use social engineering to hack it. TOR site does not stop police from investigating and catching the people running the site.

no one employs perfect opsec at all times and all it takes is one small mistake. ross ulbricht (sill road guy) caught caught because of one silly forum post that linked his two identities.