Here’s another reason to review your iPhone’s AirDrop settings

This is not on.

AirDrop is a feature that's exclusive to iPhones. It allows contacts to share files using Bluetooth or WiFi without using email or a storage device. It's a pretty handy app if you ever need to send a photo or file to a mate in a hurry. But lately, AirDrop has been used for something a lot more insidious, and actually quite worrying. Women using the subway in New York have reported instances of receiving unsolicited dick pics through AirDrop. This happens when an iPhone's AirDrop settings are switched to allow file transfers from everyone and not just your contacts. According to The New York Post, men first started sending women on the same train pictures of their penises in London in 2015. Now, the creepiness has cropped up in the States. One woman, Britta Carlson, told The Post that she was taking the train to a concert when a message request from a stranger appeared on her phone. Britta said she accepted the request.

“It was just a huge close-up picture of a disgusting penis (...) It really felt like someone had actually just flashed me.”

Another victim, Frankie Navisch, had a similar experience. He said he wanted "to punch (the guy) in the mouth for carelessly buckshotting genitalia to phones that could potentially be owned by children." The unsolicited sending of these pictures anonymously is not only creepy, it's also potentially threatening for the receiver who knows that they are stuck on a train with the sender. In an ideal world, people just wouldn't send pictures of their penises to strangers, but that's not the world that we live in. So, in order to avoid any unwanted dick pics, make sure you've got your AirDrop settings switched to receive photos from contacts only - not from everyone.