Your Dick Pics Aren’t Safe: Snowden Highlights How Much ‘Junk’ Ends Up In A Database

When former NSA contractor Edward Snowden blew the whistle on the mass spying the US government had been conducting on the world, everyone and their dog began to wonder exactly what was being stored on them as individuals. Well, if you’ve ever sent a “dick pic” or any other photo that’d be deemed embarrassing if it were let loose, and it happened to go overseas during its transmission, then the US government has it stored in a database.

If you’ve been paying any attention to the goings-on since Snowden’s revelations first broke, then this probably comes as no surprise to you. However, most people haven’t been paying much attention at all, and in fact, many on the street don’t even seem to know who Snowden is. But, when it comes to potential “dick pic” programmes, everyone agrees that it shouldn’t exist.

Interview begins at 16 minutes; ‘dick pic’ discussion begins at 25 minutes

If you feel safe because the government would only store such pictures if it went overseas, bear this in mind: Companies like Google regularly move data around from datacenter to datacenter, and sometimes, those datacenters are overseas. Your pictures might be stored in New York one day, but shifted to London the next. If that happens, then Snowden claims that the US government intervenes and stores that traffic.

Does that mean that you should stop sending personal photos? Not at all. Snowden puts it well: “You shouldn’t change your behavior because a government agency somewhere is doing the wrong thing.”