There was an interview with the CEO of Signal and some UK conservative politician[1]. It's a pretty infuriating interview, as both parties try to debate two complete separate issues. Meredith Whittaker of Signal, rightfully tries to debate the issues with breaking encryption and it's ramification, but the politician has that sorted. See they don't want to break the encryption, they want the apps to pick up the messages BEFORE encryption and side channel them to some government agency, at least that's my understanding. They want on device access to the message, which the app have, they just also want that information searched, indexed and filtered and sent to the police.
It's sad that these politicians don't see the problem... Well either don't see or understand, or they full well understand and that's the point, they're just doing a poor job of explaining why.
Honestly, Meredith Whittaker came across very poorly. She made one point well, that one can't make a safe backdoor. However, she essentially refused to answer any further topics once the conservative politician said they wouldn't require a backdoor in encrypted messaging services.
Signal, Whatsapp, and iMessage threatening to leave the UK over this bill indicates to me that the bill is unreasonable. However, Meredith Whittaker did a very poor job of demonstrating that during this debate.
The problem is, there's not really a good way to debate "If you have nothing to hide, there shouldn't be a problem." The person pushing for surveillance is going to argue in bad faith that they're the good guys, and why are you stopping them from catching the bad guys? And there's no counter argument to that because it's very hard to find specific examples of where authoritarian governments overreach and go hard on innocent civilians. I reckon when that happens, they manage it keep it very quiet, since they are authoritarian.
On top of all of that, who wants to defend child pornographers? I can see why a person wouldn't even try to engage in that back and forth. There's just no way you come out on top, because basically your side of the argument would have to come down to "Everyone has something to hide, and we should recognize and protect that." It just doesn't _sound_ good.
What is "child pornographer" btw? Is it the one who produces? Is it the one who distributes?
Sharing CP != child abuse. Viewing CP != child abuse. Storing CP != child abuse. I want to defend CP viewers. Children can suffer during production (but not always: teenagers can film themselves, for example, i.e. make home videos just like adults). But no one suffers directly during the storage, viewing and distribution of files.
Anyone wishing to control a network of computers must choose either the tube or the box. That is, either you break the tubes and intercept traffic between opaque boxes, or you break into the boxes and leave the tubes opaque. If you assume opaque boxes then by arguing for opaque tubes Meredith Whittaker is arguing for full abdication of control of the network. Politicians don't like that. Some don't like it because in good faith they see their role as that of a protector, a threat detector. Some don't like it because in bad faith they know this is giving up a significant chunk of power. (And in reality every political leader falls on a spectrum between these two).
In practice, I think we'll waver between losing control of the box and gaining it back, as it sinks in that, truly, no backdoor can be reserved for some and not for others. I think the only viable solution is to break the tube: make it illegal to send encrypted messages over the wire. Period. Then we could keep the box inviolable, opaque, and secure. But it can no longer communicate secretly to others. In practice this will mean more "sneaker net" movement of illicit and/or secret data, and probably leaps and bounds in steganography. It would also end the internet as we know it, especially any and all e-commerce. But hey, that's a small price to pay for eliminating CSAM, right?
It's sad that these politicians don't see the problem... Well either don't see or understand, or they full well understand and that's the point, they're just doing a poor job of explaining why.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E--bVV_eQR0