It's not been a good few weeks for porn lovers.
First David Cameron was trying to make it harder to young people for visit free porn websites, then Windows 10 inadvertently exposed a man's porn collection to his wife and now this.
US security firm Zscaler has revealed the growing problem of ransonware: malicious software that can capture a user doing something that they might not want other people to know about, and then blackmailing them. An app called Adult Player appeared to be a standard porn offering but secretly took photos of the user with the phone's front-facing camera. It then locked the device and demanded $500 (£330) to unlock itself.
Even restarting the phone was no use - the message stays fixed on the home screen. Naturally, the user would be far more inclined to simply pay up rather than risk a third party discovering how the lock had arisen.
Raj Samani, chief technology officer for Intel Security in Europe said that the technique was on the rise, explaining that, "ransomware is more prevalent on computers than phones, but this could be the start of a trend. You can stay safe with some basic common sense. Some ransomware threatens to delete your photos, videos and documents so back up your data. Then if you are targeted you can wipe your system and start over. Only download apps from the proper Google Play store. And if you receive an app download link in an email, don't click it."
This latest development also echoes the recent scheme discovered of users being blackmailed to prevent their Wikipedia pages being edited - a kind of protection racket for Wiki entries.
It also feeds into growing worries about the hackability of anything connected to the internet - be it cars, or even pacemakers. And that's not to mention the huge privacy concerns of Facebook, or even MI5's alleged listening and watching in on laptop users via the camera and microphone. Basically, everyone knows you've been looking at porn and it's a matter of time before they tell everyone you know.
All-in-all, it looks like it might just be safer to take porn back 'off-line'. Now where we leave did those old copies of Playboy?
(Image: Shutterstock)
