I generally just delete the email that comes from PHPClasses.org summing up what updates have been done and what new code is out there. It’s not because I don’t value the classes that are on the site. Quite the contrary. There is some really excellent PHP code on the site.

However, there’s nearly as much intrusive advertising as there is content. I feel like I’m on some sort of illicit site instead of one full of open source software. Which makes this post ironic. See, a couple of days ago, that email from PHPClasses contained a link to a class called “Image Nudity Filter“.

It purports to determine if an image contains nudity or not. It’s certainly not the first tool making this claim (though I’ve always been curious how it handles the many shades that human skin comes in), but is the first that I know of to be written in PHP.

I personally don’t have a use for it in the forseeable future, but I can imagine this being useful if you are allowing image uploads. Of course, I’m not sure how exactly you go about testing this without the testing itself causing work problems, but there it is should you need it. Or just want it. After all, I suppose you could use it in reverse and spider the web, seeking out such images instead of filtering them out.