Re: If I were kiddie porn peddler...
What these schemes are targeted at are people who have photos they've collected from various sources on their computer/phone trading them with others, via encrypted chat like Telegram. Not people producing new content and selling it - these CSAM schemes don't work to detect newly created images AT ALL, because it isn't designed to. It has to be added to the database.
These people are smart/dumb as any typical person is about tech. They know how to drag images out of their stash to attach to a message and hit send. Sure, encrypting them beforehand would be smart as far as reducing risk, but how many average computer/phone users do you know who could download an encryption app, convert the files, remember to attach those instead of the unencrypted version, hit send, send the decryption key in a separate message (preferably via a different app) then know how to reverse the process on the other end? Without being handheld by someone to walk them through it a few times?
This isn't something they could ask their tech literate child or neighbor to help them with ("why do you want to encrypt photos before you send them?") they'd have to figure it out all on their own. Many won't, so as with most policing this would catch only the dumb criminals. The smarter ones can be caught, but that takes more work so most police don't bother because there are so many dumb ones they have their hands full just dealing with them.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
