Indeed, E2EE will enable criminals to go undetected. And this
is a real problem. However, it’s an arms race that will end with criminals having proper, strong E2EE anyways. Trying to reverse this is like trying to reverse entropy, the toothpaste does not go back into the tube. It may seem like it is still doable
now, but I’d be willing to place bets that feeling will evaporate shortly.
Of course, criminals are ordinary people too. They care about convenience and network effects as much as anyone. Which is why I think it’s insane that governments want to jeopardize the trust people have in proprietary, huge E2EE platforms that actually have the means to aid them in investigations. Yes, breaking the crypto may not be an option, but at least collecting useful metadata for use in investigating, and potentially ethical hacking, is an option.
I fear the day when the trust is gone because there is a very real possibility that some day many will be using decentralized E2EE chats, maybe even P2P. It’s not just conjecture of course, Matrix exists today and is already very impressive (in my opinion) in terms of usability.
The internet is opening up the concept of having nearly private communication with pretty much any individual in the world. It isn’t free of implications, but also, as more of our lives move online I feel its absolutely crucial that every day people can feel confident they’re not being monitored. The problem of CSA and other criminal behavior existed before the internet and it will certainly exist after. It’s absolutely past time to re-evaluate laws surrounding child protection, which seem to me to mostly be reactionary at this point (in that many of them are spawned as a result of a specific incident.)