Older generations might be disgusted by the recent massive nude celebrity photo leak and even more recent “Snappening” leak that saw thousands of nude Snapchat photos and videos hit the web. I hear and see comments all the time from people wondering why young teens and even people in their 20s continue to exchange naked pictures and videos when hacks like these are all too common. Just as many older generations don’t understand the selfie craze, we also tend to dismiss nude photo sharing, largely because it wasn’t part of our lives growing up. But the simple fact of the matter is this: Sharing nude photos and videos with smartphones is fun and exciting, and teenagers aren’t going to stop doing it, hacks or no hacks.
All of these security breaches may encourage teens to be a bit smarter about the services and technologies they use to exchange nudes, however, and a new iPhone app has found a brilliant way to help protect racy photos.
SEE ALSO: The Snappening: Massive leak exposes thousands of nude photos and videos
Developer ContentGuard doesn’t flat-out admit it in the app’s description, but its new free iOS app called Yovo was designed specifically to stop people from saving your naked photos. Yovo, which stands for “You only view once,” lets users send photos that are protected brilliantly by a barrier grid illusion.
What’s a barrier grid illusion? In a nutshell, Yovo places blurred lines above the images you send, and those lines move across the screen very quickly so they aren’t perceived by the human eye. If someone tries to take a screenshot of a photo, however, the blurred lines mask much of the image.
“Everyone is becoming more conscious of the digital trail they leave. It seems as though there isn’t a day that goes by where we don’t see a headline about the consequences of inadvertent or malicious digital publication of our private lives,” ContentGuard’s Scott Richardson told CNET. “Let’s face it — not every moment or message is meant to be shared or stay online forever. Yovo represents a new way to create and share photos and messages in a more private, fun and interactive way.”
So, if you have to send naked pics of yourself to people, the least you can do is protect yourself with a smart app like Yovo.
