Perhaps I misunderstood what you were saying but you appeared to be the one describing a complex situation as "criminalizing a pattern of bits". IMO it's a level of reduction below what is useful, kind of like arguing against verbal harassment laws as "criminalizing vibrations of air".
I wasn't making a moral argument about the uh, merits, of child pornography, but rather the practical effects of trying to police patterns of bits stored on private computers and transmitted between consensual peers. This level of complexity is relevant, as it describes the scope of the activity, and implies what is required to actually control it.
If most child pornography enthusiasts are caught due to having their computer fixed at Best Buy, have you actually criminalized viewing child pornography, or would it be more appropriate to say that you've criminalized patronizing Best Buy? As stated, that's obviously hyperbolic as bona fide CP enthusiasts are an extreme minority. But we can imagine tripping up innocent people with the letter of the law (eg botnets, teen sexting, unregistered pornography), as well as similar dynamics around much more common "patterns of bits" like say pirated Hollywood movies.
