Ask HN: Open gmail, see image blocked.... hey wait

6 points by legion050 12 years ago | 8 comments

Lastpass ticket confirmation, images blocked but they're not really... So how is this happening?

http://img43.imageshack.us/img43/6353/wqo.png

songgao 12 years ago |

I guess it's encoded (embedded) in the email body? The src is not pointing to any external resource. I

One of the purpose of blocking images is to prevent tracking by sender. Embedded images won't require a request to sender's server to display so there's no need to block it?

Zarel 12 years ago | |

It looks like it's pointing to an attached image. If so, this is perfectly normal.

veesahni 12 years ago |

Emails attachments can be used as inline images. If an attachment is being used as an image, gmail no longer shows it as an attachment.

In the linked email, there were attachments used as images (as shown) and possibly additional image tags which source remote images.

There's no harm in auto-loading inline images. However, remote images can be used for tracking.

bigiain 12 years ago |

It's using a relative url for the image.

There is no image at https://mail.google.com/?ui=2&ik= …

My guess is that the blue shape and text are in the css somewhere.

t0 12 years ago |

Are they attachments?

legion050 12 years ago |

Inline if so, I have no option to download or retrieve.

eranation 12 years ago |

I've seen it before, had the same question.

legion050 12 years ago |

also, is this common? I haven't seen this until now.