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With google's machine learning brain trust, I think they could still do a pretty good job deduping. Maybe not perfect, but I'd bet on them to win an arms race.

With google's machine learning brain trust, I think they could still do a pretty good job deduping. Maybe not perfect, but I'd bet on them to win an arms race. Edit: ah, codeflo and EGreg are right. I was just thinking about the task of determining that the images serve the same role in each message (which I'm sure google could do a good job of). But (as they point out) in the "Dear <user>" case they'll still have to show the right image to the right user. Although, as Nacraile and jaxn say, if they load all those images eagerly they'll remove the value of those unique tracking images, and impose a cost on the sender.

codeflo 13y ago
There's a huge difference between something that they might do, in theory, at some point, using vaguely magic machine learning technology, and what that they are currently doing, right now, to address the privacy concerns over a change that they already rolled out to millions of users.
EGreg 13y ago
Are you saying Google will try to guess and reconstruct "Dear Marge" in the same font as "Dear John" instead of requesting both from the origin server?
- backlava 13y ago
  Getting the font right is the easy part. Figuring out the formerly occluded pixels in the background image is the hard part.
ceejayoz 13y ago
> But (as they point out) in the "Dear <user>" case they'll still have to show the right image to the right user. They could do a "This sender appears to be attempting to track you. We have disabled images as a precaution. Click here to load." Scary enough to the average user it'd probably kill the the technique very quickly.
- Silhouette 13y ago
  Scary enough to the average user it'd probably kill the the technique very quickly. I'm not sure about that. It's nothing that desktop clients such as Thunderbird haven't been doing for years. I don't see any remote images in any e-mail until I click to say load them, and this works in much the same way that plug-in elements like Flash and Java are now click-to-show in various browsers. Numerous marketers and mailing list services still use the technique to track an approximation of reader numbers, though.
- rspeer 13y ago
  Nah, nobody pays attention to warnings attached to Gmail messages after having seen so many of them. A particular example of crying wolf that comes to mind is the yellow box that says, "HEY! THIS SENDER ISN'T WHO THEY SAY THEY ARE!", which usually means that someone just forwards their .edu address to Gmail.
scoot 13y ago
Or just cache unique images on delivery...

codeflo 13y ago

There's a huge difference between something that they might do, in theory, at some point, using vaguely magic machine learning technology, and what that they are currently doing, right now, to address the privacy concerns over a change that they already rolled out to millions of users.

EGreg 13y ago

Are you saying Google will try to guess and reconstruct "Dear Marge" in the same font as "Dear John" instead of requesting both from the origin server?

backlava 13y ago
Getting the font right is the easy part. Figuring out the formerly occluded pixels in the background image is the hard part.

ceejayoz 13y ago

> But (as they point out) in the "Dear <user>" case they'll still have to show the right image to the right user. They could do a "This sender appears to be attempting to track you. We have disabled images as a precaution. Click here to load." Scary enough to the average user it'd probably kill the the technique very quickly.

Silhouette 13y ago
Scary enough to the average user it'd probably kill the the technique very quickly. I'm not sure about that. It's nothing that desktop clients such as Thunderbird haven't been doing for years. I don't see any remote images in any e-mail until I click to say load them, and this works in much the same way that plug-in elements like Flash and Java are now click-to-show in various browsers. Numerous marketers and mailing list services still use the technique to track an approximation of reader numbers, though.
rspeer 13y ago
Nah, nobody pays attention to warnings attached to Gmail messages after having seen so many of them. A particular example of crying wolf that comes to mind is the yellow box that says, "HEY! THIS SENDER ISN'T WHO THEY SAY THEY ARE!", which usually means that someone just forwards their .edu address to Gmail.

scoot 13y ago

Or just cache unique images on delivery...