Well, here goes... I'm "investing" $20 for the rest of HN to find out how accurate it is.
Okay so it's scanning... it has found a bunch of development things, gifs from my website work which isn't porn -- recycle binned stuff -- okay watching this, it's just bringing up every single file that contains a list of extensions; it's included under "videos" things like "DVDMaker sample" which certainly aren't porn. I don't think "passwordField.png" located in programData/skype is pornographic.
The websites it has found don't appear to be any I have ever visted, although some are (and they're popular sites) about half aren't. Either it's fabricating the websites or I've visited sites that embed data from these other sites? Plausible I guess.
What an awful product, albeit effectively marketed.
Methinks you misunderstand. This is a money-at-all-costs gambit, not a pinnacle-of-science-and-engineering product.
It could have been made by someone following popular HN advice: a.) target women by b.) preying on a weakness (here, a sense of insecurity) then c.) extract money.
it get's repeated ad-nauseum by an individual with little else to offer.
You've been on HN for less than an year. I'm not sure you're ready to start passing judgement on how much one of the most helpful contributors has to offer.
Sounds pretty fraudulent in that case, since the advertising materials clearly imply that it's detecting porn, not just listing all image files on the computer. I mean bad classification would be one thing, but not even attempting, while claiming that it does, seems like another. Maybe demand your $20 back?
citricsquid - thanks for the info. Did it give any false negatives for you?
To all complaining about the product giving false positives: think about it from the user's perspective. If you ran this program, and it showed you no results, you'd probably just think it didn't work. Showing you a scattering of false positives "proves" that it at least did something. And checking down the list makes you feel like you completed your audit.
Not a professional reverse engineer. But the jar is not obfuscated and is fairly easy to understand.
The jar loads a "model" which is a serialised version of a class containing keywords from a url constructed from the applet params "codebase" and "getmodelurl".
It looks into
1. Chrome, firefox, and IE histories
Matches history with sites in the "model"
2. Main filesystem
It enumerates all the files in the file system, checking if it is either a picture, or a movie, then checks if the filename matches the list of keywords obtained from the "model".
Of course installing Picasa desktop and asking it to index the whole drive's photos will do pretty much do this exact thing for free.
In my dream world this website would be setup so that when someone clicks "Buy" it would simply go to a static page that reads: Congratulations! We've empirically determined that you need more communication in your relationship.
A Picasa scan would work much better, insofar as it would, in fact, work. What images I've saved have the site's autogenerated numeric filenames, which from citricsquid's report would get ignored by this thing's piss-poor heuristics.
This service may serve a purpose for men as an early indicator that their SO has communication issues. I cannot speak for anyone else but I for one would not want to be in a relationship where my SO was spying on me like she was my probation officer.
It is to some people - I know I'd be bothered by it. Mostly due to my own insecurities. I'd wonder "Why?", and wonder what I'm not doing that he wants.
For some it might been seen as a light form of cheating.
I think that it's a sensitive enough topic that if you're doing it without your partner knowing that you're likely treading into a potential problem.
(For the record, I feel like searching your partner's computer for anything is a gross violation of trust - more so than watching porn without the other person knowing)
It depends on what kind of relationship you have. Traditionally, and what seems right to most people is a relationship with a level of commitment towards the other. I'm not saying this is always true, but that level of commitment does have benefits, usually resulting in a stronger relationship because of the trust developed.
Associating watching porn with lack of commitment sounds like something out of the 50s. Nobody(*) contemplates leaving their SO for some person on a website (or in a movie, or on TV), and porn isn't an exception.
But actually, I wouldn't be surprised if somebody broke off an existing relationship to pursue someone they were fantasizing about online. If they're unhappy in their current relationship, online fantasy is a form of escape and leads to eventual idealization. By comparison, the real person can't compete as their flaws are evident.
Dime-store psychology perhaps, but on these topics nothing surprises me.
Probably closer to more like something out of the 90s. Also very much age / culture / internet age related.
I think many of the attitudes regarding porn has changed simply because it became so ubiquitous that it changed culture, not that culture somehow grew up and grew to embrace porn.
My current agreement is, “You can look at anything on my computer you want, just ask me first.” Looking without asking is a game misconduct. My failing to disclose something when asked would likewise be a game misconduct.
It’s just like allowing the police to search, but asking for a warrant first. Agreeing that we have to ask first puts up the hurdle of triggering a conversation.
It feels like this guys' read Patio's blog and decided to create a product which appeals to women. I would love to know the kind of money these guys are making.
This is also what I took from the story. The title should be "Business Idea Of The Week".
I admit that the service is morally questionable, but the simplicity and execution is intriguing. There have to be similarly trivial ideas that can be turned into businesses if you look hard enough.
Find my porn? Why, it's right there in the folder called Porn next to Movies and Music. And not only does my SO know, we talk about what appeals to us.
To be honest about it to each other and above all to myself belongs to a healthy and open sexuality.
Had a customer a few years ago, a non-profit in NYC. They had a link on their site which said either porn or nude women. When you clicked the link you brought up their donation page.
I hide mine in the folder on my desktop labeled "porn". Neither myself or my girlfriend have any problems with it, but I know plenty of my friends who would be offended if they saw it. On my laptop I keep it in a truecrypt folder with a password I share with the girlfriend (because she adds to it and uses it, not because she wants to spy); that way if I have any stuff I need to do at work with the laptop I can be comfortable knowing it's not going to pop up in a presentation. I think what's changed since I was 16 and had a deeply hidden folder is that I'm no longer embarrassed about it, I just worry that I'll accidentally offend someone else.
I do. Not so much from my wife, but from the kids and co-workers. Nothing like seeing a dude's browser history pop up on the conference room projector.
I thought the author's pointing out of the supposed untruth that you don't have to download anything because you have to have Java to be a bit silly.
'Youtube claims you don't have to download anything to watch videos.... but AHA! You have to have Flash installed! Thought you could put one over on us, ehh?!?!'
Not really... Java and Flash are extremely common browser plugins.
I've found, from personal experience as friends/neighbors/family's unofficial tech support person, that there's a surprising number of women that look at porn. Whereas guys might blush when their viewing habits are exposed, women would probably live the rest of their lives in shame.
Maybe "Find Their Porn" would open up a greater market? Most guys laugh at the prospect of their girlfriends/wives being mad about looking at porn, but they would probably fall into a spiral of insecurity if they found out their significant other was looking at other guys for sexual pleasure.
Private browsing mode, available in all leading browsers.
Wouldn't that effectively hide all traces of any browsing history locally, be it nefarious or otherwise?
That kind of response begs the question, if you have to hide it, is it wrong or not? Or is it more you don't want to be showing person Z some funny video and it autocompletes... something rather embarrassing.
Regardless, these guys have hit a nerve, can't see why they won't be printing money in the coming weeks with all the exposure they'll get.
> Wouldn't that effectively hide all traces of any browsing history locally, be it nefarious or otherwise?
No; on the Mac, `dscacheutil` still knows about the sites you visit during private browsing, and I am certain that similar logs exist on other OS's. (Of course, your ISP also knows what sites you're visiting, but I guess that's what you meant by 'locally'.)
Guys, both recent Windows and any unix-like OS support SEPARATE user accounts! I wouldn't trust anything less...
EDIT: In Windows, just beware to edit the ACL for the private user folder so that no other users can read its contents. I was very dissapointed that Windows 7 didn't do that by default. Files under the other users' folders by default are amenable to global search in explorer.
Fuck SEO. With a tool that does exactly and trivially what the costumer is looking for and appeals to a target niche so perfectly, and $20 a pop, I bet they can pay to be the top ad.
then it might be closer to say a tool that pretends to do exactly and trivially what the customer is looking for, and bilks a target niche out of money without actually doing it.
There was a free checker like this a while back that used CSS :active links to check which sites were visited. Looks like these guys just monetized it.
So go register hidemyporn.com or something and get to work.
For bonus points: secretly build both types of services and sell to both sides in an arms race. You could even offer an extra premium tier of each that defeats the non-premium tier of the other.
This comment reminds me of my radar detector, which is vulnerable to a police radar detector detector, but which itself has a radar detector detector detector.
First: As a society, we should really examine the kind of impact internet porn is having on the lives of our young men. There is a growing body of knowledge around porn-induced ED in 20-somethings, among other myriad ways it negatively impacts the health and productivity of individuals and relationships.
Second: Who actually saves porn anymore?
(EDIT: it's not a "huge body of knowledge"... yet, it's growing)
I'd like to see some references to this supposed "growing body of knowledge", because it sounds like the kind of complete BS put out by anti-porn religious zealots.
As a society we need to move past this ridiculous idea that the enjoyment of sex, including sexual fantasization and pornography, are something to be ashamed of or feared. Sex and porn are normal parts of a healthy, adult sexuality.
A lot of the research, at least that I'm familiar with, actually comes a bit more from the left, generally pro-sex but skeptical of (at least some kinds of) porn, with the arguments being that porn tends to promote unrealistic expectations and a certain sort of attitude towards women, which get in the way of forming healthy real-world sexual relationships.
I'm not sure how solid any of the conclusions are, though, and I don't know what the ED research would be referring to. Here's one (slightly dated) meta-analysis that does find some association with aggression, especially following watching porn that involves violence: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1468-2958.1995....
> ... porn [is a normal part] of a healthy, adult sexuality
This is the kind of statement that should really be carefully evaluated. Smoking was "normal" once, too, along with many other unsavory bits of culture we have now moved on from.
I followed your link and could not find any studies cited in the article that back up the claims made (not saying there aren't any, just that I couldn't find any in the article). Most of it hinges on a self reported survey conducted once in Italy.
Basically, show some solid evidence. Otherwise it would seem that you are taking a moral position on this, not a scientific one.
I think the the "normalcy" of smoking is much more similar to how the suppression and shaming of normal sexuality was, until relatively recently, the norm in modern western civilization.
IMHO, the article you linked to is about as enlightening as an article saying that overindulgence in cakes and cookies is harmful. Well duh! In normal, moderate consumption both cakes, cookies, and porn are completely normal and healthy.
I'm curious now: do you have citations for the "growing body of knowledge around porn-induced ED in 20-somethings"? I don't mean to undermine your point, I'm just interested in hearing more.
I would also be extremely curious to see those citations.
Because time and again, sociological "research" that attempts to show porn as bad winds up being exposed as the worst kind of science, when it's even remotely related to science to begin with.
I don't like to be so biased based on my (dis)agreement with a study's conclusions. But in the case of porn research, it just so often winds up being about as close to relevant as "Reefer Madness" is to the effects of drug use.
There is a huge and growing body of knowledge around porn-induced ED in 20-somethings, among other myriad ways it negatively impacts the health and productivity of individuals and relationships.
It's not a one-way street through - access to porn also reduces sexual violence.
It also helps people get over the 'shame' of having a body. Some people like the taboo of 'private parts', some people don't, and my personal opinion is that taboos for taboo's sake are pointless and should be squashed.
Sorry for the tangent, but why does this word get a "y" in the "dys", when any other "dis" word is spelled with an "i": disturb, disrespect, discombobulate, disconcerting, etc.
I think you should reduce the price and get feedback to increase the quality of your product. $20 is quite expensive for just some invalid information. Maybe charge somewhere form $1-$5. Get more people to test it and find more ways to better your product.
I'm going to create "Find Her Porn Finder". It will detect when this piece of crap is installed on your machines and email you with the suggestion to break up with them immediately.
Okay so it's scanning... it has found a bunch of development things, gifs from my website work which isn't porn -- recycle binned stuff -- okay watching this, it's just bringing up every single file that contains a list of extensions; it's included under "videos" things like "DVDMaker sample" which certainly aren't porn. I don't think "passwordField.png" located in programData/skype is pornographic.
The websites it has found don't appear to be any I have ever visted, although some are (and they're popular sites) about half aren't. Either it's fabricating the websites or I've visited sites that embed data from these other sites? Plausible I guess.
What an awful product, albeit effectively marketed.