The bomb exploded a couple of weeks ago with the launch of DeepNude, an artificial intelligence application that processes any woman's photo and turns it into a nude. In less than 48 hours, the official DeepNude page closed, but as expected, the application's code ended up on the Web. While several hosting services began their hunt, there is a variant that refuses to disappear: its name is PepeNude, it is in alpha state, and it is compatible with Windows and Linux.
"We don't proactively monitor user-generated content, but we do investigate abuse reports." With that line, the GitHub spokesperson sealed the fate of any application that tries to reproduce the operation of DeepNude, an application designed to make nudes of women. Although GitHub does not hesitate to clarify that any project related to "non-pornographic sexual content" is welcome on the platform, you will probably need to look for another hosting if your intention is to explore, clone and/or maintain code similar to the original DeepNude.
From a certain point of view, this reminds me of Popcorn Time. It took the Web by storm in March 2014, a couple of weeks later its creators removed it... and the clones based on its code survive even today. The same happens with DeepNude. A bit of reverse engineering, and we already have things like PepeNude.
PepeNude: DeepNude's Heir?
The download is split into two parts: on one hand, the binaries with their corresponding interface and the command line version. The available information indicates that its developer already published version 0.1.0 on GitHub (despite the warnings, and you will need an account on the platform to access), but when it comes to downloading PepeNude from one of its mirrors, we can only find the alpha 0.0.1.
The other half is the checkpoints, that is, all the information the algorithm needs to transform images. They only need to be downloaded once, and the future updates of PepeNude (should it receive them) will use the same checkpoints.
In total, it is almost 2.5 GB, a size similar to the original DeepNude. Processing with a graphics card is limited to Nvidia and CUDA, but there is always the possibility of "lowering" to the CPU. The author, known as "DeepManYY", declares himself a "lover of dark humor and satire", believes anyone can do whatever they want with the project, and that his code should remain "free and open" forever, while rejecting any responsibility for its misuse. I am afraid the law is a bit more complex than that, but we are not going to discuss that today. If you want to try it, the link is below.
PepeNude on GitGud: Click here
PepeNude on NotABug: Click here
