Porn Detection Stick Seeks Out Your X-Rated Images

A new device by Paraben can search the images on your computer and produce a report of suspected pornography.

This $98.95 thumb drive, called the 'Porn Detection Stick,' can search a 500GB hard drive with 70,000 images in an hour and a half. Paraben claims the device is 99% accurate, citing 'advanced image analyzing algorithms that categorize images as potentially harmful by identifying facial features, flesh tone colors, image back grounds, body part shapes, and more.' The Porn Stick can even detect images that have already been deleted from your hard drive!

The Porn Detection Stick is compatible with Windows-based PCs and is recommended for parents, schools, churches, and employers.

But before you preemptively quit your job to avoid the shame, know that the device's search algorithms are too specific to detect all types of X-rated digital media. It cannot analyze Web content or videos saved to your hard drive, Gizmodo reveals. So even though the Porn Detection Stick is fairly accurate, it's not completely in step with the way many people view porn.

Comments

[henrypapillon]

09:00 AM on 03/07/2010

If you don't know it when you see it, there is no point in watching it , anyway.

[ClaireHuxtable]

12:07 PM on 03/06/2010

I would have loved to be a software engineer at the company that created this.

Fellow Employee: Dude, what is that you're looking at on your work computer? That's NSFW!

Me: I'm creating an algorithm to detect the presence of nipples in a .jpg file. It's for our next product.

Fellow Employee: Cool! Can I see?

[Mark Twaine]

09:42 AM on 03/06/2010

Virginia's Interstate Highway Welcome Stations will offer a mandatory scan of all lap top computers in cars crossing over into nthe state from D.C. and Maryland.

[Madbunny]

07:50 PM on 03/07/2010

That'll do wonders for traffic, since it takes an hour and a half.

[viktornacht]

08:17 PM on 03/05/2010

I heard that if you use your Porn Detection Stick too much, you'll grow hair on your palms.

Or is that a myth?

[doctordoubt]

12:59 PM on 03/07/2010

Myth. On your hard drive.

[rikster]

07:59 PM on 03/05/2010

define porn... there are many things inside the beltway that are quite pornographic...will it find those images..?

[WOMD]

04:21 PM on 03/05/2010

dumb!!

[GOATLEY3]

01:59 PM on 03/05/2010

when my stick detects porn it points to the sky

[zenwhenicanbe2]

01:12 PM on 03/05/2010

I got a porn detection stick right here

[Bret Douglas]

01:00 PM on 03/05/2010

Can it save the porn to the USB stick so you can take it home with you?

[LOCUTUS13]

06:14 PM on 03/05/2010

Still not worth the $99 price tag even if you could.

[maslin]

11:46 AM on 03/05/2010

Also - what the HECK is WRONG with us, that violence is fine and sex is not?

[maslin]

11:45 AM on 03/05/2010

Let me be the first to say: LOL!

[OldPirate]

10:34 AM on 03/05/2010

"harmful images"....so it detects images of violence?

no? didn't think so. Nudity is harmful, graphic violence is ok. What a great society.

[Isis N]

02:49 PM on 03/05/2010

I completely second that. There's something seriously wrong with a society that approves of graphic violence, but shies away from a natural state of being. Come one, we're BORN naked! Nudity is NOT wrong!

[boomer7391]

04:04 PM on 03/05/2010

I was born wearing a lovely blanket and I have the picture to prove it.

[sb250guy]

10:21 AM on 03/05/2010

Who actually keeps porn pics on their computers anymore?

[VinceTeeter]

05:16 PM on 03/05/2010

You do if you ever look at them on the internet. Your faithful browser keeps them after you move on and erasing files on most computers only removed the directory/name entry. The actual data remains until that space is required for something else.

[chef151]

09:25 AM on 03/08/2010

right, but the stick doesnt detect any of that, just saved/downloaded images, which was sb250's point, i think.

[ElBorba]

10:08 AM on 03/05/2010

Does it locate gay porn on the computers of hypocritical self-hating republican state lawmakers?

[nanderson65]

09:46 AM on 03/05/2010

I already have a porn detection stick...

[ElBorba]

10:06 AM on 03/05/2010

BOIIIING!!!!

Dammit!! You beat me to it!!