Software Does The Censoring So You Don't Have To

You can't judge a book by its cover, but can you judge an attachment by its color? Content Technologies thinks so. It's pushing a new product called Pornsweeper that automatically scans each incoming E-mail image, measuring the percentage and proportion of skin tones to other colors in the image.

If too much flesh is detected (as set by buyers of Pornsweeper), the program blocks the E-mail, assuming it's carrying sexually explicit material. If administrators prefer, tagged messages can spur an automatic response to the recipient, the sender, or administrators.

Pornsweeper could become a very popular tool for IT. According to some analysts, most online porn is downloaded between 9 a.m and 5 p.m.

But, you might well ask, what about the many E-mailed images of pigs with humanlike skin tones? The company's Web site states that the software "should be able to differentiate between the skin color of pigs as opposed to the skin color of humans, unless, of course, the pig had very humanlike skin color."