When I first caught wind of this device over Twitter, I was pretty sure it was all a clever hoax. Unfortunately for me - or not (you'll see why soon) - it turns out that this device is very real. Yes, this USB device is indeed a porn detector which is aptly called the Porn Detection Stick.

It seems that the people behind it, a company called Paraben, have used their expertise in the field of computer forensics for the good of man kind. Recognizing that porn is an increasing threat (er, ok) this dinky USB thingajamig is supposedly able to detect porn images on your computer with the simple click of a button. According to CNET, the device works in a very CSI manner and uses "advanced image analyzing algorithms that categorize images as potentially harmful by identifying facial features, flesh tone colors, image backgrounds, body part shapes, and more". The algorithm is reportedly so advanced, that it'll even pull out images that have been previously deleted. Heck, the company even goes as far as promising less than 1% false positives.

But before you can say holy invasion of privacy, you might want to know that the porn sniffer is only capable of picking out pornographic image files, so all those 3GP files will escape detection. Priced at US$100, all we can say about the Porn Detection Stick is that it would have definitely cleaned up many a computer if it had gone to market say... 10 years ago?

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