I've absolutely no knowledge of how they operate, but it occurs to me that there would be at least two very obvious avenues:
1) During the course of investigation an officer infiltrates a CSAM sharing ring and/or poses as a customer for CSAM. Material is shared with the officer as it would be to an actual consumer of CSAM.
2) When someone is charged with child abuse, possession of child porn, etc, their physical and electronic lives will be methodically and forensically searched for CSAM material. They will likely find material they already know about, but potentially uncover new material and/or new social networks.
Any material acquired would need to be analysed and classified for the purpose of effective prosecution. My understanding is (from other comments made by people on other websites) that images in the NCMEC database are tagged based on the severity of their content and that Apple is only scanning for the most extreme "A1" material.
I wasn't sure what A1 meant so I googled it. According to this[0] PowerPoint presentation, page 22:
A = prepubescent minor
B = pubescent minor
1 = sex act
2 = "lascivious exhibition"
If you want to ruin your day, the PDF provides very specific—depressingly, grossly specific—definitions for the above.
1) During the course of investigation an officer infiltrates a CSAM sharing ring and/or poses as a customer for CSAM. Material is shared with the officer as it would be to an actual consumer of CSAM.
2) When someone is charged with child abuse, possession of child porn, etc, their physical and electronic lives will be methodically and forensically searched for CSAM material. They will likely find material they already know about, but potentially uncover new material and/or new social networks.
Any material acquired would need to be analysed and classified for the purpose of effective prosecution. My understanding is (from other comments made by people on other websites) that images in the NCMEC database are tagged based on the severity of their content and that Apple is only scanning for the most extreme "A1" material.
I wasn't sure what A1 meant so I googled it. According to this[0] PowerPoint presentation, page 22:
If you want to ruin your day, the PDF provides very specific—depressingly, grossly specific—definitions for the above.[0] https://www.prosecutingattorneys.org/wp-content/uploads/Pres...