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Disturbing new sexting trend: D**k-dropping

If you, like just under half of all Australian mobile users, have an iPhone – it might be time to update your security settings right about now.

Women are reporting a disgusting new way for men to send them unsolicited photos of their genitalia and they don't even need to have the right phone number or email address to do it.

You don't even have to give out your number to get a gross pic these days (posed by model). Source: Getty
You don't even have to give out your number to get a gross pic these days (posed by model). Source: Getty

Instead, enterprising perves are using the Apple 'AirDrop' network to send unsuspecting women photos of their penises.

Sydney videographer Shannon Aldwell, 21, was the unlucky recipient of a "dick-drop" this week.

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As she sat on a busy commuter train on her way to work, an alert popped up on her phone.

This unnerving message appeared on a Sydney commuter's phone. Source: Supplied
This unnerving message appeared on a Sydney commuter's phone. Source: Supplied

"I was only on the train for three stops, so about 10 minutes, and I was standing at the door scrolling through Facebook when the AirDrop request popped up," Shannon told Be.

"The name 'Hugh Dick' paired with the emojis left little to the imagination as to what this photo was going to be," she said.

"I was a little taken aback at first and looked around the carriage to see who it could be... in the immediate space there was only a lady and a man in a suit so I assumed it was the man."

No one needs a stranger's genitals in the face first thing in the morning. Or ever (posed by model). Source: Getty
No one needs a stranger's genitals in the face first thing in the morning. Or ever (posed by model). Source: Getty

Shannon isn't the first to receive a stranger's nude photos via AirDrop, with women reporting similar incidents in London and New York.

Worryingly, this new form of harassment is unlikely to ever land the perpetrators in trouble.

"The law is yet to catch up with this kind of 'cyber-flashing'," Dr Nicola Henry, an Associate Professor and Principal Research Fellow at RMIT University who specialises in technology-facilitated sexual violence, told Be.

"It's a grey area. Even though indecent exposure is against the law, I think if you went to the police to report something like this they would probably not know how to help you.

"This is such a new issue that people are grappling with."

It's overwhelmingly women who are on the receiving end of sexual harassment, with one-third of women reporting they've been sexually harassed since the age of 15, compared to fewer than one in ten men, according to numerous national surveys conducted by the Australian Human Rights Commission.

For now, it seems we'll just have make sure we have AirDrop switched off if we're out in public.

HOW AIRDROP WORKS


  • AirDrop will only work in certain situations.

  • Both sender and recipient must be using a recent model iPhone, iPad or iPod touch running iOS7 or iOS8 or newer.

  • The sender and recipient must be within about 30 feet of each other.

  • Bluetooth and Wi-Fi must be enabled on both devices. NOTE: You don’t need to be connected to the same Wi-Fi network.

  • Using AirDrop creates a temporary direct Wi-Fi connection between the two devices.


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