Computers

Paraben's Porn Detector Stick sniffs out unwanted images on your computer

View 4 Images
The Porn Detection Stick from Paraben is a quick and portable way to clean up your computer
The Porn Detection Stick from Paraben is a quick and portable way to clean up your computer
The Porn Detection Stick from Paraben at work
The Porn Detection Stick from Paraben at work
The Porn Detection Stick from Paraben at work
View gallery - 4 images

Everyone knows there’s a lot of pornographic material on the Internet. It’s easy to find if you’re looking for it but sometimes it’s just as easy when you’re not looking for it. The use of tricky or confusing URLs and other misleading descriptions can mean opening or downloading inappropriate images accidentally. And in some cases unsuspecting users may be unaware that this material exists on their computers. Paraben’s Porn Detection Stick (PDS) is a USB stick loaded with software designed to find and remove illicit images from your PC to protect your family, business or organization.

The PDS works with any computer running Windows XP, Vista, or 7, and once launched will find any pornographic images - even deleted ones, says Paraben.

The PDS uses a series of algorithms to analyze flesh tones, shapes and curvatures, face detection, body part separation, and more to alert you to images likely to contain pornographic material.

To use it, you just plug the stick into a USB port on your computer, double-click PornDetectionStick.exe and view the search results.

Exposure

Sadly, Paraben says the average age a child is exposed to pornography online is 11 years old. Children may not be actively searching for this material but chances are they've run across it and pornography may be residing on your computer right now.

Pornographic content on company computers exposes owners to legal risks as well as leading to disgruntled employees, warns Paraben.

Schools and churches can benefit from a PDN because despite Internet filters, pornographic content can contaminate organizations’ computers via flash drives or other media, downloaded from e-mail, or simply missed by a filter.

The PDN can be used on any computer you own and because it’s a USB stick, it’s easy to carry with you and run it at your convenience.

Paraben says a search of a 500GB hard drive with more than 70,000 images takes only about 90 minutes, much quicker than searching manually.

The Porn Detection Stick has a number of methods and algorithms to detect pornographic material. Using programs such as Image Cleanup, Skin Detection, Background Elimination, Edge Detection, Body Part Separation, Negative Curvature Rejection, Elimination, Face Detection, Body Part Layout Decision and Decision, the PDS claims to filter around 99 percent of non-pornographic images from a system leaving you with a fraction of the images on a computer to look at.

The company says it searched a computer with a 500GB hard drive using the Porn Detection Stick. Within 90 minutes the entire computer was searched and more than 72,000 images were analyzed producing only around 400 false positive results. That's less than 0.6 percent.

Whether you think someone is viewing pornography on your computer or whether you think your machine was exposed to pornography unwillingly or by accident, Paraben says its PDS will help you quickly investigate your computer and determine if pornographic images are present.

The Porn Detection Stick is available for around US$99 from Paraben and other online computer stores.

Via Oh Gizmo!

View gallery - 4 images
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Flipboard
  • LinkedIn
3 comments
Ed
I find it interesting that the images that this item found as \"highly suspicious\" are not porn! Instead it\'s a bunch of women in bikinis! It even flagged a baby picture and two pieces of sushi as porn! And notice that there is not a single image of a chipendales man in the list? So, does the only porn it detects is bikini clad women, babys and fruits and foods the \"look like\" porn?
DaveSpicer
Gizmag is fun to visit, but someone on its staff needs to learn some basic math. Four hundred out of 72,000 is less than 0.6 percent, NOT \"less than 0.006 percent\". Your article understates the number of false positives by a factor of 100! Surely Gizmag has a higher standard than that for accuracy...
<em>Eds note: thanks davespicer, we stand corrected. The error has been amended. We appreciate you keeping us on our toes</em>
windykites
I suppose you could use it if you wanted to find those images that you gave an obscure name so that other people would not find them. By the way, has any research been done to see if the exposure of porn to 11 year-old children has been harmful? I don\'t see any signs in society in general. Hard core porn was made legal in the U.K. just a few years ago, available in newsagents in the high street, and most people are not even aware of the fact. It just happened. There was no outcry, and no noticeable effect.