nostr:npub1wq6n8skpdtrhw8hmr00kp2za7a8y97zqngq8jq85q2aydp8ejxzq8p7d9k Help me understand this. You get the IP because someone loads an image you're hosting? Or are you somehow getting the IP when someone loads an image hosted elsewhere?
Also, my understanding is that the images are loading automatically in the client, so however you get the IP, you get it on a silver platter just by the user browsing their feed.
Please do me as well so I can see what this looks like.
Currently there are a number of companies offering a service to embed zero pixel gifs in your outgoing emails, which make calls to specific servers with specific file locations that are stored in a database attached to the name of the recipient and details of the message. When the recipient opens the email with the embedded gif, it makes a request to earlier mentioned server, which exposes the user agent, location, and IP, of the person reading the message. It also tells the sender that the message was open, when it was opened, how many times, and from where.
The Internet is built on surveillance.
Proton blocks all that, I believe. It looks like it does, anyway. I get a lot of emails that are literally blank boxes because companies use some third party for mass emails.
Yes, good clients will not load images until you knowingly direct them to. Proton is on the list of clients/services that adhere to this practice.
I host the server, and DM people a unique image URL, so when they open that specific URL I'll know who they are and the IP they connected with.
Okay, so this is not some complex hacker thing. VPN or Tor solves it easily.
I would've hoped you'd be getting nothing but exit nodes in 2024, but alas...
