• @jaybone@lemmy.world
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    138 hours ago

    How is the application able to send data to any website? Like even if you as the legit user explicitly asked it to do that?

    • fmstratA
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      6 hours ago

      Haven’t read details, but the classic way is to have a system visit: site.com/badimage.gif?data=abcd

      Note: That s is also how things like email open rates are tracked, and how marketers grab info using JavaScript to craft image URLs.

      • @jaybone@lemmy.world
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        46 hours ago

        This is why every single email client for the past 2+ decades blocks external images? This didn’t occur to the AI geniuses?

        • Eager Eagle
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          66 hours ago

          IME they usually proxy and/or prefetch images for caching instead of blocking them. Only spam content is blocked by default.

          • fmstratA
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            35 hours ago

            This wouldn’t help, would it? How would you prefetch and cache:

            site.com/base64u-to-niceware-word-array/image.gif

            ? It would look like a normal image URL in any article, but actually represent data.

            Note: “niceware” is a way to convert binary or text data into a set of words like “cow-heart-running-something-etc”.

            • @hedgehog@ttrpg.network
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              22 hours ago

              If it’s prefetched, it doesn’t matter that you reveal that it’s been “opened,” as that doesn’t reveal anything about the recipient’s behavior, other than that the email was processed by the email server.