I mean it was created before internet/computers but sure. I don’t see your point though as we can and do scan media to combat that creation, without nuking the internet... Without the ability to scan, the battle seems seriously kneecapped. If currently reported counts from automation in the US are in the order of magnitude of 100 million (I forget exact numbers, but it was near this) from a small number of companies, there’s just no way to combat that manually with “good old fashioned police work” and I don’t know of other options besides those two..

Here's the greater point no one is talking about. Reread Gates statements. Illegal porn was practically an aside tossed in at the last minute. His point was lies.

Encryption was the enemy because it enabled lies.

The difference between Gates and LEO/Politicians? Gates lacks their dishonesty.

LEO & pols have a terribly long history of leveraging extreme behavior as justification for increasing LEO/Gov power+budgets, along with a corresponding loss of our civil liberties (which translates to increased Gov/LEO power).

re:9/11

All of us remember how tech + new gov powers + gobs of cash were necessary to stop the terrorists (practically in our borders and ready any second to unleash more devastating attacks).

Less remembered is how anti-terror Tech/Power/Cash is being used against low-level offenders (eg: Fusion Centers)

And sickeningly predictable, anti-terror tech is today being deployed against people who criticize cops (eg: protests)

Which is exactly what the history of LEO (Gov,etc) suggested was going to happen (eg: War On Drugs). That same history is now poking at us to realize that we can expect the same from War On Illegal Porn.

At least that's something we could learn, if learning from history is something we wanted to do.

FWIW: I agree with all that

>I mean it was created before internet/computers but sure.

My point was that the creation rate of illegal porn exploded because of computers. Your above statement seems dismissive of that.

>we can and do scan media to combat that creation, without nuking the internet. Without the ability to scan, the battle seems seriously kneecapped.

It isn't and hasn't been. Large tech companies intercept and report billions of images to LEO regularly, which are largely captured before and after transport.

Meanwhile, actual police work is what leads police to people who harm children - the importance of which is being increasingly eclipsed by the obsession with safe encryption.