Body shots

Australian veterinary school students have photographed themselves together naked in a barn, on a lake platform and fields. Wearing only boots with cowboy hats and arms shielding their breasts and genitals while in full view of cattle and horses,

they intend to sell hard copies of the photos worldwide.

The artistic poses of the men and women of Sydney School of Veterinary Science are splashed on the Veterinary Student Nude Calendar 2021, which the vet students produced as part of the school’s annual charitable tradition. Proceeds from the sale of the charity calendar, each priced at A$25, will be for the benefit of local farmers hit hard by bushfires last year and this year.

Of course, the students who volunteered to appear naked in the nude calendar expect themselves to be ogled by buyers. But there are many others who are getting themselves exposed online without their clothes on for a different reason.

For at least 100,000 women who are subscribers to the messaging app Telegram, their naked photos are being shared online by unwitting netizens and perverts without their knowledge.

Workers of security specialist Sensity also saw the naked photos while monitoring the extent of damage caused by a new deepfake bot.

Deepfake bots are artificial intelligence-powered apps that allows users to strip naked an image of a dressed woman and produce a realistic nude photo of the subject. It is an offshoot of the original app called Deepnude unleashed last year only to be taken down later by its creator over concerns of abuse.

Reverse-engineered copies of the app that generates fake nude photos, however, proliferated and became accessible on bit torrent sites and are now being used on unsuspecting netizens, particularly Telegram users.

Authorities in India and Italy are cracking down on deepfake bots, which have the potential to victimize more women and children by showing their fake nude alter egos on the Internet.

Just recently, Miss Universe 2018 Catriona Gray filed a complaint before the National Bureau of Investigation about fake nude photos of her circulating online.

Likewise, face altering apps featured on social media platforms are being used by millions of netizens to generate fake photos of themselves as the other gender or an aged version of themselves just for amusement.

Getting one’s photo on a deepfake bot, however, poses a serious problem to victims, even if the photos are fake, as there is a saying that goes — to see is to believe.