YNOT EUROPE – Paraben Corporation has released a USB device it believes will ferret out all the porn pictures on a computer’s hard drives. For 99 euros, the software embedded in the key identifies “suspicious” images and removes them.

According to the developers, the program uses a proprietary algorithm to analyze images and compares them to known patterns found in pornography. Files can’t hide, either, a Paraben spokesperson said: The software is able to harvest information from standard locations, browser cache and even compressed files like ZIP and RAR archives. Even files that have been deleted can be retrieved and analyzed.

Paraben Corporation claims the product incorrectly flags only 1 percent of files. The software can scan a 500GB disk containing 70,000 image files in about 90 minutes. In addition to flagging suspicious images, the product also creates a report for forensic analysis or evidence.

To date, Porn Detection Stick is able to search only image files in 15 formats including JPEG, BMP and TIFF. However, an update designed to scan video is in development and may be released later this year.

The product is compatible only with Windows operating systems.