I don’t think this explains the 18x increase between 2014 and 2018. Communication technology didn’t change much in that timeframe, and it’d be surprising if child porn communities substantially lagged behind the mainstream in terms of their tech (there are heavy incentives for them to stay up-to-date).
>Communication technology didn’t change much in that timeframe
I find it plausible that de facto availability of secure communication channels had a lowered enough technical bar that thresholds were passed in that time frame.
I don’t think this explains the 18x increase between 2014 and 2018. Communication technology didn’t change much in that timeframe, and it’d be surprising if child porn communities substantially lagged behind the mainstream in terms of their tech (there are heavy incentives for them to stay up-to-date).
>Communication technology didn’t change much in that timeframe
I find it plausible that de facto availability of secure communication channels had a lowered enough technical bar that thresholds were passed in that time frame.
Yeah, maybe. Messenger’s user base doubled over that timeframe, though was already at 600 million users in early 2015.
Facebook did roll out opt-in end-to-end encryption for Messenger in late 2016, which is a possible inflection for this.