While roughly half of humans will tell you they were already born with a porn detection stick, a company is marketing a device that purports to offer a “robust illicit image detection device designed to protect your family, business or organization.”

If finding out that someone besides yourself is looking at porn on a computer is the kind of thing you do in lieu of hobbies or other constructive things, for a mere $100 you too can own Paraben’s “Porn Detection Stick.” Employing “different algorithms that look at things such as flesh tones, shapes, facial recognition, and more,” the anti-porn stick compiles these instances and marks them “suspect” or “highly suspect.” However, I think this aspect of the copy is highly telling about the whole exercise of covertly rooting out porn viewing:

Images that are determined to be suspect can easily be a false positive hit. This means there are elements in the image that triggered enough suspicion for it to be categorized as suspicious. You’ll notice many of these pictures are of people who have a larger amount of skin showing (pictures of babies often get marked as suspicious) or contain a lot of flesh tones (a picture of a cardboard box may be marked as a false positive) or even have round or elongated shapes. Sometimes it’s not obvious why an image is marked as a false positive.

A lot of people look at straight up porn. But some people come across it incidentally on the internet. And a lot of what people look at online to get their rocks off won’t read as “porn” to lots of other people. (Foot fetishes, pregnancy fetishes, leather or latex kinks, for instance.) On the surface, I can only think of two instances in which this kind of technology would be used- suspect employees and suspect significant others. However, output is much more indicative of an employee’s worth than what they look at during their downtime and it’s not really anyone’s place to tell their spouse or partner not to look at dirty pictures on the interwebs. Basically, if you buy this thing, you’re a paranoid jerk. (And very likely to harass someone for an errant Evony banner ad.)

Besides, for just $50 I will accurately tell you that every male you know is looking at computer porn. I take PayPal or cash, no personal checks.

[ProofPronto via ChipChick]

Busted: Porn detection stick does what it says on the tin is a post from: The Inquisitr

In June, the Ukrainian parliament made possession of porn- like, any and all- illegal without a prescription.

I know what you’re thinking. What in the hell condition would require a prescription for porn? I think I have it. What is the dosage? Does my insurance cover it? Is there a co-pay…

But seriously, someone should contact Amnesty International. According to The Register, possession of all porn is punishable by a fine of about £69 (heh heh heh) or three years in jail. That’s not even just the really freaky-freaky stuff. Any porn can land you in the big house under new laws. As quoted in the piece, it comes down to the eternal “definition of porn” problem:

“Pornography is vulgar, candid, cynical, obscene depiction of sexual acts, pursuing no other goal, the explicit demonstration of genitals, unethical elements of the sexual act, sexual perversions, realistic sketches that do not meet moral criteria and offend honour and dignity of the human by inciting low instincts.”

So why the sudden legislation? The linked article suggests that it may be an attempt to get in good with us puritanical Westerners, citing a 2004 push in UK parliament:

Back in the UK, in May 2004, Labour MP David Lepper boasted in parliament of how he and a number of fellow MP’s, concerned by the Graham Coutts case, had put forward a five-point plan to Ministers for controlling extreme porn. The five points were:

• Persuading internet service providers, search engine companies and web hosting companies to block access to extreme porn
• Criminalising the possession of extreme porn
• Better international co-operation in dealing with extreme images on the internet
• A souped up role for Ofcom
• Requiring credit card companies to put a financial squeeze on the providers of extreme images

This plan was received favourably by then Home Secretary, David Blunkett, who raised it in discussion with his counterparts in the United States. The same issues were then raised with countries in the G8 and Europe.

Whatever the reasons are that prompted the new law-, hello, no porn! Why is there not more global outcry over this?

In Ukraine: No Porn without Rx is a post from: The Inquisitr

The officers, he says, told him they believed someone was using his IP address “to distribute harmful information.” He says when they took the computer, they claimed it was because of “suspicion of downloading pornographic material.” He was later told the fine was a result of the “computer network and Internet safety protection administrative regulations.”

The case gets fairly convoluted, but long story short, officers eventually indicated that the charges had to do with the fact that the clip was downloaded via BitTorrent. That, they suggested, could “provide seeds for others to download” the material in question.

The whole thing has stirred up a media storm in the region — and, according to news reports, has turned the guy into somewhat of an Internet star. Following the online outcry, police ended up cancelling the fine. They maintained, however, that a law had been broken, and said they would “impart a punishment of criticism and education.”

In response to that, the man told local reporters the following:

“There really wasn’t any criticism. Mostly it was that I should try not to watch so much porn in the future.”

Uh, right. Lesson learned?

Man Fined For Having Internet Porn is a post from: The Inquisitr