How to Scan for Pornography

For an explanation of extensions and formats Click here >>

The most basic scan for pornography involves scanning for all files that are images or movies. Then by skimming through the list you can pick out files by their names (more on this later).

The most common extensions used
Images .JPG .GIF
Movies .MPG .MPEG .AVI .MOV
Audio .MP3

Searching in Windows

To search for files of these types is simple in Windows. Simply press your “Start” button and select “Search” from the Start Menu. Type in the extension of the file format that you are scanning for (for example if you are searching for images type in GIF) and hit “Search Now”. 

Windows has a slightly more complicated search method. When the Search dialogue appears select “Pictures, Music, Video” from the options. When the filename box is displayed key in the * (asterisk) character. How to search in Windows

There may be many files that are displayed. Which ones are pornographic? Double-clicking each one to open it is slow and laborius. A much quicker way is to look at the filenames. Any files that have obvious sexual references are immediately suspect. The next group of suspicious files are those that are named with seemingly random sets of letters. If you look at their locations you will also see valuable clues as to what they are. Double click the suspect names to see what they are.

Learn to check your browsers “History”. In Internet Explorer there is an icon in your status bar to display the History. This History lists all the websites that have been visited recently. It is very easy to clear the history though so do not rely on this to check if websites have been visited.

There are a lot of ways to hide files on a computer.

Explanations

File formats

Before we examine this topic I need to make clear the concept of “file format”. Take a normal book that you can read in real life as an example. The format could be considered the way in which the words are put together so as to make sense. English requires certain rules to be kept for the written word to be understood. Computers likewise have rules for the way in which data are stored in order to be understood. These rules create the need for file formats.

File formats are characterised (in Windows) by their extension. The extension is the part of the filename that comes after the “.”

The actual choice of extension is actually only of convenience and doesn’t affect the format of the file at all. (compare it to putting a Japanese cover on an English book to keep with the previous explanation).