How do you hide your porn?

[jake20]

All this talk about preserving digital legacies got me thinking: What about the bits we don't want to leave behind? Y'know, the risqué material? Don't pretend you don't know what I'm talking about.
This seems like a complicated subject. It's not. There's some data that's private, both in terms of content as well as the very fact of its existence, and your viewing of it. Let's say you look at porn. (You do.) This fact—not just the art porn itself—belongs to you. There's no need for it to be a discoverable part of your digital life, or, god forbid, your digital legacy. Here's how to make sure your private collections are in order, and our of sight.

Level One: Obfuscation

Who hasn't created a folder called "Business" only to fill it with an entirely differently kind of business? It's a hallowed tradition, enjoyed by nearly everyone who's used a computer in the last 20 years. And as ridiculous and inept as it sounds, it probably worked—then.
There was a time when hiding a folder deep within an operating system's file structure actually hid it. Family members and spouses never had a reason to explore C:/Windows/System32, much less the "Nrop" folder you cunningly stashed there. And unless anyone went out of their way to search for incriminating content, it just wouldn't come up.
Today, things are different. Both major OSes have deeply integrated and everpresent search features—Spotlight in OS X and Start menu search in Windows 7—which bring the depths of your file system bubbling to the surface with alarming ease and frequency. They prioritize file types over file locations, so your buried videos are just about as discoverable as if they were stored your "My Videos" folder. As far as hiding your shit, and keeping your bereaved family from discovering your bizarre-but-harmless-but-still-pretty-bizarre video collection, this offers only the slightest protection.
The section age-old variation on pornfuscation is the trusty file rename. Here's how it goes: Save your files, change their names to something innocuous, and switch their file extensions to something inscrutable. LadiesEatingFriedPigsFeetInLingerie.avi becomes lefpfil.dat. And it helps to sew together a little cipher, too. Something like:

.avi=.dat
.mpeg=.dll
.mp4=.lib
.jpg=.docx
While this will probably accomplish your goals with almost no initial effort, it's pretty unwieldy in the long term, and far from failsafe.

Level 2: Encryption

The word "encryption" evokes spy films, shady government agencies and more than anything, nerds. But here's the thing: It's actually super easy. It's also nearly 100% effective, unless someone very serious is looking very seriously for something seriously incriminating on your computer, in which case I probably don't want to help you out anyway. So!

Mac OS X: Creating a password-protected archive is your best option here. It's dead simple, consolidates your files, and puts your stuff one extra layer of abstraction further away from search indices and the like. To make a passworded .DMG file (an image/archive file that you can open with a simple click) from an existing folder, just do this:

• Open Disk Utility (Spotlight search Disk Utility)
• File>New>Disk Image from Folder
• Select the folder, click Image
• Select encryption (128-bit AES will do)
• Choose a unique password

And that's it! Now you have a whateveryouwant.dmg file that can't be viewed, opened or edited by anyone but yourself. Your very own little lockable porn capsule! (Ugh.)

Windows

To create a password-protected archive in Windows Vista or 7, you'll want to download a 3rd-party archive utility, like WinZip or WinRAR. And by like WinZip or WinRAR, I mean just download PeaZip. It's free, and better than the software you're used to. Then:

• Open PeaZip
• File>Create Archive
• Select the files you want in the archive
• Click the Lock icon under the Output selector
• Select "Encrypt Also File Names"
• Select archive type "PEA" (the fact that you're using this program's proprietary format, as opposed to something like ZIP, means that it'll be even less identifiable as, well, what it is.)
And there you go.

Level 3: Liquidation

Seriously, people, stop storing incriminating material on your computer. You're already getting this stuff from the internet, so just leave it on the internet. Stream videos online, and look at pictures without downloading them. It's easy.

Firefox, Chrome, Safari and even Internet Explorer have private browsing modes, which don't accumulate history, cookies, or local caches of any kind. Use them. Your digital self will thank you.

[Ozboi]

+1 to the above level system. Works well for how badly you need to hide your porn. Remember kids, your ISP and any logging service on your router or between you and the porn know about it unless you use a VPN with the liquidation level. And they can be expensive. That and being on here and hitting sharing ratios probably means you can't liquidate always.

I also used TrueCrypt to encrypt a harddrive. I wasn't using a harddrive health monitor like Acronis. It crashed. Recovering a crashed encrypted HDD with no master file table is HARD.

[unknown69]

I used to stream porn and hide, since it is always awkward, whenever gay or straight. I don't do that anymore I download and keep it in folder where all other torrents are, but still I don't make it visible as putting shortcuts to it on desktop, because that would make me look perverted,

[harrisbren]

I don't hide my porn, just put everything on a folder. Its my pc/laptop. What you see is what you get. If you have something against it, then don't use or borrow my computer.

[N4te]

Came here to answer but I kept reading instead. hehe so many suggestions.

[Brad83401]

Use a  portable drive to load Linux, and keep it on a partition there.

When plugged into a Windows machine, nothing shows up. Reboot and Linux will see everything. I currently using Mint Linux, it's fast and it runs on most every machine.
http://www.linuxmint.com/download.php

Good Luck

Brad

[rid123]

its shocking how many of you hide your files in folders…thats not really hiding it, as you can search for video files in windows. or even run any media program and it could sniff out those files...

My way of hiding:
I have two usernames on my pc
Main user gets logged on automatically to pc with no password when windows starts:

all my hidden stuff is on drive Z:
drive Z is not visible at all to the main user (used a registry edit to hide drive Z from Main user)
Drive Z is only accessible and visible to second user who also owns all the rights to the drive.

[Apathetic]

TRUE FUCKING CRYPT, TRUECRYPT!!!

It can MOUNT a file as a drive but to be able to mount it you need a password.

The good thing: it's disguised as a file. Once I'm done with my porn I just dismount it.
Another good thing: Once unmounted it's not searcheable. It would only appear as a binary file.
The best thing: it mounts/dismounts FAST.

[YohioLover]

@JamesErvano:

Of course, you could just stream it but does anyone download and how do you hide it from other people.

Hidden folders.

[AlanC]

i use some software to lock up my entire external hard drive… unlock it every time before i inspect my legacies. ;D ;D

[groovedware]

I was coming to giggle about not having to hide porn then I remembered all the porn I have that isn't man on man is hidden away in documents.  :blind:

[michael065]

mv porn .porn

[litres46]

These days I bury it deep in obscure folders like everyone else. No one really uses my laptop but me and I lock it if I walk away from it anyway.

However in my early days I'd copy an image off the internet and paste it into a word document, then turn the brightness on the image up 100% So it was just white, then I'd copy paste a wikipedia page over it and name the file something like "Osmosis essay"

[tkteun]

I'd really like to recommend SequiaView, it's a 515KiB download which allows you to easily find your porn back if you've lost it.

[LEVI]

@JamesErvano:

Of course, you could just stream it but does anyone download and how do you hide it from other people.

All of mine is downloaded (around 500GB at present) and it is kept in a folder called XXXrated  :cheers:

[rawr]

I store everything on my file server and the only way anyone can connect to it is via SFTP (or shell.) Everything is stored on a raid 5 array running 5x 2gb disks. I use the server to backup my personal business files as well. Anything I'm actually interested in watching (or re-watching) is on a separate hard drive on my main PC in the drive's root folder. I'm not at all concerned about somebody finding anything.

If you are hyper sensitive about somebody finding your stash I would suggest you buy a cheap laptop and do the "dirty things" on that, then hide it where nobody can find it. Even with something like drive encryption you could still be leaving a history of what you were watching in the video player or websites you don't want people to know you visit could show up with various recovery tools. Plus then you have this encrypted drive and someone could ask "hey yeah what are you hiding on that drive there?" Just get a "business" laptop, make sure your password isn't easy, and use a VPN, I doubt anybody will figure you out. If somebody finds the laptop and questions you, say it's your private personal diary and you would be extremely offended/upset if anybody were to read it.

[BDEinz]

The porn in my laptop is hidden in a folder called "tracing". And the porn in the external HDD is hidden in Documents>Codecs>New Folder

[MrMazda]

This may not be of much use to you directly, however I happen to have a couple of solutions to this….

The first is installing a NAS, which often comes built into some wireless routers. This will allow you to store the content on a virtual network path, which then allows you to control who has access to it. The other option is my server. I have stuff on there that I want to keep hidden from people and do not want to store directly on my laptop. This gives me an easy link into the server through the network, but ensures that the content that I don't want to be visible can be ruled out of the question through the use of username & password authentication. This way, people like my room mate can access the more public shared content on the server, but gets an Access Denied error when he attempts to open any of the shares that contain files that I do not wish others to view (such as porn).

[shdwrulr]

I have my videos in my videos library. I also have windows homegroup setup, so anyone on the network can see & download what is in my video library. Also, it is shared to Plex, so I can stream it to my phone or the 60" HD TV in the living room.

[young]

I never had a "personal" computer till recently and after reading the replies I think I have used all these methods at least once, from putting inside Program Files to changing extensions to making encrypted .RAR archives to now using TrueCrypt