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Tracking pixels in email should be worthless, because loading external images should be disabled by default in email clients. Instead, all email clients I’ve e
by neallindsay 6y ago
Tracking pixels in email should be worthless, because loading external images should be disabled by default in email clients.
Instead, all email clients I’ve ever seen default the other way. Maybe Apple would some day be willing to make its client more secure in the name of privacy by flipping the default. I’m sure they’d face a backlash, though.
- Moru 6y agoI'm pretty sure Thunderbird defaults to not load external images but I only install it every 5 years so don't quote me on it :-)
- yetihehe 6y agoI'm very sure thunderbird defaults to blocking external images (but there is button to download if you want), because I'm using it daily exactly for this reason. I also have my mail server from small local provider and it has several web mail clients available, each one of them is setup to not download external images.
- Semaphor 6y ago> Instead, all email clients I’ve ever seen default the other way. What E-Mail clients are those? Both I use (Outlook for work, Fastmail privately) do exactly that, and neither of those are small. The only one I know that’s different is GMail, but well, Google and Privacy.
- csunbird 6y agoAs far as I know, GMail actually downloads the image as soon as the mail arrives on their servers, accomplishing the “making tracking useless” task in another way.
- iamacyborg 6y agoThis is not correct. Gmail's cache certainly obfuscates some data, such as the IP, but email pixels will still tell you when an email was opened and by who.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- jusssi 6y agoI just recently saw a completely opposite suggestion that would also render tracking pixels (mostly) useless: the e-mail server could load, and cache, all the images when the e-mail is received, regardless of whether it's ever opened or not.
- Danieru 6y agoOhh, that sounds perfect for DOS attacks. A clean reflection attack vector operating on giant assets.
- josefx 6y agoEven better DDOS, just spam lists of image links to various email providers and watch your target collapse under all the requests.
- darkwater 6y agoWhat would be the difference from normal hotlinking in a standard email? The vector in both cases would be being able to send a million emails; a reflection attack with spam emails as a vector would be just the same without provider servers doing anything special. MUA opening images would do the attack. Actually a provider could cache the hotlinked resource and remove almost completely the reflection.
- jjuhl 6y agoUsing only plain-text emails solves the problem nicely. Who'd even want to ever use HTML mail other than shady or clueless or annoying people? Just use plain-text only and the problem is solved.
- darkwater 6y agoYeah, the typical HN/usenet/ML solution to everything: just use plain text, it's good for everyone and nobody needs anything else. Newspapers and books always looked like an RFC document anyway, right?
- Zandikar 6y agoAgreed. It's one thing that made a great first impression on me with protonmail, as external content is disabled by default.
- jkepler 6y agoK-9 Mail defaults to asking the user if he or she wants to load images, at least on my Android phone.
- Macha 6y agoRemote images are disabled by default in thunderbird, the Gmail webapp, the Gmail android app, the fastmail android app and the fastmail web app. Gmail makes an exemption for people manually added to your contacts, and they all have an option to load images by clicking a button which then gives an option to whitelist the sender for images. The Gmail iOS app is the only example of an email client I have handy that doesn't do this by default and since that's signed into my work gapps I can't rule out that being something my employer has changed in the config.
- iamacyborg 6y ago> the Gmail webapp, the Gmail android app Sort of. I believe images are off by default if you add a non gmail address to gmail via imap/pop but @gmail addresses in gmail will default to images on.
- Macha 6y agoIs this a g suite/consumer gmail difference, or some sort of grandfathered default? Because that's not what I observe on any of my gmail accounts.
- iamacyborg 6y agoHmmm, not sure. I've not created a new consumer gmail address in over a decade. New gsuite accounts definitely have images on by default though.
- whatatita 6y agoI use Gsuite daily through work and images are off there by default. Maybe it's a company default?
- sdoering 6y agoAs far as I remember when configuring my GSuite account I as the sole admin was able to configure images to be default of in mails. But maybe this is a regional thing as well.
- m463 6y agoAlso Apple mail will load the pixels when forwarding an email, no matter what the setting is.