Spouses beware: Thumbdrive finds your pr0n

The P--n Detection Stick is the latest gadget from computer forensic firm Paraben. It connects to a computer through USB to scan for pornographic content, before creating a report for the user.

Its software analyses images to identify faces, flesh tones, image backgrounds and body parts  that are potentially pornographic.

In addition to JPEGs, more than 15 image formats are supported (PNG, RAS, TIFF, GIF, TGA, BMP, WBMP, JP2, JPC, ICO, PCX, WMF, PGX, DIB, and PNM). Once a scan has been completed, users can view the thumbnails in the 'Highly Suspect' folder and even remove them from the hard drive if desired.

The scanning software is also capable to detecting deleted images and Internet cache files, “so there's no hiding Internet activity’, explains the website. In other words, the Delete History button will no longer save you from prying eyes.

The Porn Detection Stick leaves no trace on the target machine and requires no software to install. According to the Paraben website, the Porn Detection Stick can search a 500GB hard drive with over 70,000 images in just an hour and a half.

Paraben boasts that its software has a positive success rate of 99%. During an average scan, around 0.07 percent of images will be false positives. Curiously, this commonly includes pictures of babies, cardboard boxes and fruit.

It sells for US$100 ($A96) and is aimed at businesses, schools, parents, and churches (although we imagine quite a few susupicious spouses will be picking one up too). It can only detect images but Paraben is working on an update that will also scan for pornographic videos.