You’ve got porn!

• Smut is turning up on home, office computers with shocking regularity

By Lisa Baker

The Portland Tribune, Mar 16, 2004, Updated Oct 30, 2009

You’re minding your own business and checking your e-mail when the naked people arrive in glorious, full-color glory under the subject line “hi.” Despite deleting these messages every time, even returning a message to the sender saying “Not interested,” more porn arrives every day.

You’re embarrassed. After all, you’re just not that kind of person. What if someone comes in before you’ve managed to banish these people from your screen?

It happened to Tracy Hankins, a builder who stars as Mr. Fix-it on KEX (1190 AM)’s Saturday home improvement show. At the time, Hankins was sitting innocently in his office.

“Here it was, 6 in the morning, and there was this big picture that took over the whole screen. No ‘X-box’ in the corner to get rid of it. And my 20-year-old daughter walks in and she says, ‘Oh, my God, Dad.’

“And then she says, ‘Here, let me help you get rid of it.’ ”

Computer experts say no one is immune from the naked ones, not even the experts themselves. As for legal recourse, there is almost none, despite the federal “CAN-SPAM Act of 2003.” Passed in December, the bill that was meant to outlaw persistent e-mail bombardments has thus far done little to stem the daily deluge of offers for refinancing, “male enhancement” and discounted drugs.

Tom Speakmon, president of Commercial Electronics Service Center Ñ a computer repair and consulting business in Southeast Portland Ñ remembers when porn visited him. He was sitting behind his desk, negotiating a $30,000 contract with a prospective client. Behind him, his computer Ñ logged onto a seemingly harmless site on the Internet Ñ was busily flashing some skin.

“I turn around,” Speakmon says, “and there was a young lady, posing. I think, ‘This client’s going to think I’m some kind of weirdo.’ That was an embarrassing moment.”

Uninvited, unsolicited computer porn is showing itself everywhere: in e-mail boxes and in pop-up windows accompanying even the most benign Web sites. Workers are looking over their shoulders when they boot up their computers for the day, wondering if and when the porn people will arrive and become the smoking gun in a sexual harassment lawsuit, or grounds for termination for misuse of company equipment.

“We don’t know what to do,” says Cheryl Ann Hagen, an executive assistant and public relations officer with Bail/Frankling Creative Services and Wizardy of Southwest Portland. “It takes time away from people who are trying to do their jobs. I think it’s disgusting.”

Call the experts

Speakmon says most people try to remove it from their screens as quickly as possible, but often don’t seek technical help because they’re embarrassed. Others, he says, try to resolve the problem themselves in dubious ways. “People listen to these stories, old wives’ tales. You know, tweak one eye and fall on your left earlobe, and that’ll solve it.”

Speakmon gives this advice: Call a service tech for advice on what to do. “We’re not going to sell you anything; we’ve got enough problems that are serious; we’ve got plenty of work,” he says. “If you’re at work, call your in-house tech. Chances are, if you’re having problems, others in the office are, too.

Even companies that have installed e-mail filters to cull the unmentionables before they reach in-boxes find that some unwanted messages slip through anyway. But it’s a difficult balance: While tightening the filter protocols often works to kill offensive messages, it also can result in legitimate mail being tossed out.

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