How to Not Be Seen Nude on the Internet

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Friday, August 07, 2015

Don A. Kruse, GoLocalPDX Contributor

Ten years ago, if you took a few racy (read: naked) photos of yourself or your lover, made a home sex tape, or documented any other bedroom escapade, it was unlikely those recordings would ever, ever see the light of day.

Enter smartphone culture, Millennials, Snapchat, and Tinder and those days are long past.

Back in the days of yesteryear, simple logistics kept such photos and videos private. For someone to find, steal, copy and distribute physical photos or videos took an extensive amount of effort. Today, any of your photos can be seen worldwide with the tap of a screen.

But there are ways to keep the nude, racy, indisposed versions of you off the Internet without ruining all the fun.

Abstinence Theory

There is one very obvious way to prevent nude photos of yourself from ever appearing on the Internet – whether that be in a deep, dark corner of the web or on a highly visible online channel.

Don’t allow nude, or sexually explicit photos or videos of yourself to be made.

But there is a glaring error in this principle. Not taking nude photos and videos of you in an age of online courtships, sexting, and long distance relationships is akin to abstinence-based sexual education. Abstinence works in theory and it can work in reality.

The Facts

1. It only takes one careless encounter to result in an unwanted pregnancy.

2. Any photo or video can be made available online in seconds for the whole world to see.

3. Learning protective measures has been proven to be more effective than abstinence.

We’ll now move forward with a bastion of protective measures because we will assume, dear reader, that you are capable, and willing, to have fun in this brave new world.  

Anonymize

If you are set on sexting, use a service such as CoverMe to make the messages anonymous. I’ll remind you now NOT to include your face or any personal items in the background. Keep in mind that all modern devices – computers, tablets, smart phones -- can take screen shots of anything on their screens.

Backing up the Cloud

Here’s a common situation. While your lover is away on business, you give them something to lust over: scantily clad photos of you. That’s great. They promised to delete those cheeky g-string photos after returning from the trip, and you trusted they would.

The road to hell is paved with good intentions; your lover’s smartphone automatically backs up to the cloud. Do they know how to delete the backups? Hopefully your face isn’t in the photos.

The problem, dear reader, is that no one’s promise is worth anything when it comes to digital media. You must assume that there exist copies of that g-string photo. So what can you do?

Nerd Stuff will Save You

You also need to be aware of EXIF data, which is automatically included with any photos or videos captured on a digital device (smartphone, video camera, DSLR, and so on). This data links a given photo or video to a particular device along with the date and time. Smartphones usually include GPS data with photos and videos as well. You will want to strip this information out (see how to do this here and here).

Review and Delete

After your partner or you takes compromising, scintillating photos or videos, review them on the device on which they were taken. This way you can delete any incriminating photos immediately as well as those stored in the cloud, and let them keep the photos that don’t show anything that would betray your identity (like your awesome Hello Kitty tattoo). 

Already Exposed

There may arise a situation in which the damage has been done, and it’s already too late. You’re busted. You broke all the rules and the video of you and your lover is already on SubmitYourTapes.com.

You must move on to the painful part, which is answering questions. Don’t ignore the questions. Answer truthfully but carefully and creatively. Getting caught in a lie might be worse than what is in the photos or videos themselves.

With these tools, go forth and be good to yourself and each other.

Don is the Information Technology Manager at law firm of Stahancyk, Kent & Hook in Portland, Oregon. He is a member of the Portland FileMaker Pro User Group, the Apple Developer Connection, and the InterFace 2010 Advisory Council for Oregon and Southwest Washington. He enjoys blogging on his own web sites and others, providing technical support tips in web forums, talking long walks with his son, and learning home improvement and gardening.

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