Sex work is the oldest profession, and that is certainly true on the internet, where online pornography has been equal parts innovation-driver and bogeyman. That has perhaps never been truer than at our present moment when everyone is stuck working and playing from home. The adult streaming site Pornhub reports that it has seen visitors surge nearly 25 percent since the coronavirus outbreak required many of us to stay at least six feet away from, well, everyone. But while porn can be a welcome relief in these trying times, it can also put your privacy (or at least your dignity) at risk.
A quick side note: beyond any personal moral objections to pornography readers may have, there is also the issue of exploitation. Given how frequently and easily content can be recycled and reposted online, it can be difficult to tell if the people appearing in pornography have consented to have the content released, or were fairly compensated. That’s not to mention the trafficking in images or video of child sexual abuse. We don’t touch on these issues, but it’s important to be aware of them. We encourage readers to report abuse and exploitation wherever they see it. We don’t have the space for it here, but our sister site Mashable has an excellent deep dive on how to find ethical porn.
Going Incognito
One of the easiest ways your pornographic preferences to become public is the auto-complete self-own. Most browsers and search engines try to be helpful by guessing what you’re typing based on what you’ve done in the past. This can be helpful, but also the source of some embarrassment. If you frequent pornsite.xxx, when you go to show someone the best VPN roundup your browser might fill in the embarrassing result instead of PCMag.com. This is bad enough if someone is looking over your shoulder, but in these days of working from home and screen sharing in Zoom meetings, you’re likely to multiply your embarrassment by the number of people paying attention to your meeting.
“People who use their devices in public for presentations, demos, school, and work should at least use Incognito mode to make sure porn website addresses don’t get stored,” said Bogdan Botezatu, Director of Threat Research and Reporting at Bitdefender. We at PCMag, however, would recommend that any porn partakers use Incognito mode to protect themselves from embarrassment.
While useful, it’s worth noting that Incognito mode has limitations. “Your searches, pages you visited, login details, and cookies will not be saved on the device after you close your private windows,” explained Daniel Markuson, digital privacy expert at NordVPN.
“However, [Incognito mode] doesn’t hide traffic from third parties, and it doesn’t secure traffic from hackers or other attacks and vulnerabilities. Your browsing data can still be collected by your ISP, your employer, and any other third party that can track your IP address,” said Markuson.
Sexy, Sexy Data
A more dramatic threat is data theft, which is unfortunately common in all industries. A data breach from an adult website might contain, “private information such as chat conversations, transaction history or even video content preferences,” said Botezatu. “This is likely to create a nightmare similar to what happened when Ashley Madison got leaked—people learned about the online whereabouts of spouses, employees and public persons, causing an unprecedented meltdown.” If info from a dating app (albeit one focused on cheating) can cause such a ruckus, imagine how much more sensitive data from porn sites is?
A savvy attacker may not even need to actually steal data in order to profit from it. “Porn watchers might experience some blind blackmailing attempts where they receive messages claiming that hackers have gained access to the computer used for porn-binging and that they also managed to record the victim via the built-in webcam,” said Botezatu. “This is a common claim and all [similar] messages should be immediately deleted.”
A variant on this kind of scam is called “sextortion,” where the attacker blackmails the victim into providing explicit images of themselves. These can then be used to further pressure the victim. While scammers may be bluffing, it’s a good idea to keep your webcam covered when not in use, and to use local antivirus to guard against any snooping software.
In some places, what would be considered legal pornography in the US is outright banned, and accessing it could lead to complications with law enforcement. In those situations, a VPN would be a useful tool, but we must stress that we are not advocating breaking any laws, which can have serious consequences.
Guarding Your Spicy Traffic
Mass data collection is big business (in fact, it’s pretty much the only big business online, apart from affiliate sales), and incentivizes the collection of enormous amounts of highly detailed personal information. In the US, the list of organizations hungry for your data includes your internet service provider (ISP).
The pornography you consume doesn’t need to be anyone’s business but your own, and in this sense a VPN is extremely useful. “[A] VPN reroutes internet traffic through a remote server and hides the IP address, preventing websites from seeing the visitor’s original IP or location,” explained Markuson. “A VPN also encrypts traffic exchanged between the internet and your device. This means that nobody, including your ISP, can see what you’re doing online.”
A great way to protect your data is to simply never provide it. Privacy services like Abine Blur and others let you create disposable email addresses, phone numbers, and even credit card numbers on the fly. The disposable email addresses are particularly useful since you can generate a new, unique address for each service, making it much harder to tie accounts back to you.
Similarly, disposable credit card numbers are harder to link directly to you, and are effectively a one-time use payment. Additionally, you use Abine’s address as the billing address, meaning you’ll never have to hand over this sensitive information to a porn site. “They can also facilitate cancellation, which many adult sites make intentionally complicated to retain customers and can be a source of embarrassment for consumers,” said Rob Shavell, Co-Founder and CEO of Abine. “Since, really, who wants to explain why you’re disputing a questionable charge from your favorite adult site?”
Websites can track your movements in a variety of ways, but the method is largely the same: find (or assign) a unique identifier to a visitor, and then wait to see where else that identifier turns up. Tracker blockers break the cycle by preventing ads and sites from IDing you, making it much harder to follow you from site to site. Stand-alone tracker blockers, such as Ghostery Midnight or the EFF’s Privacy Badger, are excellent, especially when paired with a privacy-conscious web browser that has its own tools, such as Firefox.
Note that these tools can sometimes break site functionality, particularly custom video players. Privacy Badger, for instance, lets you toggle specific trackers on and off, which can usually fix the issue. Firefox has less flexibility, but can likewise be tuned for specific situations.
More than particular tools, Shavell encourages people to take the time to understand what privacy settings exist in their browsers. “Most have tools to block javascript, pop-ups, and to flush cookies every time you close [your browser]. Basic practices like this go a long way to improving overall browsing safety.”
Another avenue for attack are phishing sites. These are malicious websites that prompt you to enter personal information, and then use it for nefarious ends. A common tactic is to disguise a phishing site as a bank login screen, thus tricking victims into parting with their financial login information. A phishing site can also masquerade as a pornographic website, harvesting credit card numbers and personal information for fraud, or contact information for spam. Most web browsers are fairly adept at detecting phishing sites, and antivirus software even more so. If your browser or your security software says that a titillating URL is dangerous, it’s best to listen.
Use (Antivirus) Protection
Even if a pornographic website takes great care to protect its users, it can still become an unwitting vector for attack. “There are some cases where malicious advertisements are bought from small advertising companies and displayed on porn websites,” said Botezatu. He explained that this is an issue not just for porn sites, but any place that sells ad space. “Unfortunately, users can’t immediately tell when malicious activity takes place on the respective websites, and this is why a security solution running in the background is highly recommended.
“If anything malicious is hosted on the respective page, it will automatically be blocked.”
Most people are probably confident in their ability to avoid malicious files, and don’t see the use in antimalware software. Unfortunately, it’s exactly these kinds of people that keep attackers in business. The best security software will identify files and malicious sites before they can cause any damage, and can even protect against insidious threats like ransomware.
“When looking for explicit content, users might end up on phishing sites or may click on ads that lead to downloading malware or ransomware,” wanted Markuson. He advised to avoid downloading pornographic content, and instead stream it (via a VPN, naturally).
More Than Just a Pretty Face
Beyond societal shame, there’s a reason why pornographic websites have a spotty reputation. “In the wild-west days of the early internet (late 90s-2000s), there was an explosion of adult sites, many of which were quickly slapped together and were just trying to make a quick buck any way they could,” recalled Shavell. “This included implementing outright scams, such as distributing ransomware, viruses, or adware that sent your browser into endless click generating pop-up cycles.”
All the experts we spoke to for this story told some variation of the same tale, concluding that, in general, adult sites are safer now than they used to be. Still, the shady tactics used in the early days of online adult entertainment are still red flags to watch out for. Opening numerous windows or leading you down endless trails of links to access content, for example, is a bad sign.
Many of the experts we spoke with warned against small, “fringe” sites peddling pornographic material. They advised sticking with well-known names in the industry, which are more likely to take care when handling personal information. Things like contact information, a business address, and a privacy policy can be signs that a site is on the up-and-up.
Shavell also warned against using logins for pornographic sites that might be shared on forums or elsewhere. “These simply tend to be teasers to lure people to the worst sort of scam-sites.”
Markuson points out that any website could be dangerous, so use the same scrutiny that you would for a pornographic site. “Users should check if the URL of the website begins with HTTPS and has a padlock icon next to it. If it’s just HTTP, the site is not secure.”
Try to Be Cool
It’s also important to keep a cool head, even when handling hot content. “Many consumers of pornography exercise poor judgment while browsing because they’re in an excited state. Biology takes over and users overlook risks they’d normally pay attention to,” said Shavell. The checkered past of pornographic sites can also set a dangerous expectation that customers should expect some level of shadiness. Shavell recommends being extra cautious, and to listen to warnings from your computer or browser if it detects something untoward.
Lastly, consider your context. Browsing pornography on a work computer, or while using a work-provided VPN—even while quarantined at home—can land you in serious trouble. It’s also not a good idea to involve other people in your private fantasies, without their express consent and in an appropriate way. Basically, don’t slide into random DMs or be creepy with your colleagues, and be respectful to the sex workers whose content you partake.
These are hard times we’re living through. Don’t let the pleasant pleasure of pornography become another victim of the 2020 dumpster fire.
