Email immutability matters more in a world with AI • Hacker News Board

Re: Email immutability matters more in a world with AI

#111

Post by TheNewsIsHere » Sat, Oct 04, 2025, 4:19 AM UTC

mikepurvis wrote: post #70

IanCal wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Images are the clear thing that is typically remote - sometimes to the point of an email that’s entirely just an image, or rather a link to an image.

Doesn't GMail pre-fetch those images and then cache them for the duration of the email being in your inbox, so as to defeat tracker dots, read receipts, etc?

You can, at the very least, register an open by generating unique URIs for any remote content.

I’m not sure how long Google caches it. I know Fastmail is doing the same thing now for any remote content fetched from within their web interface.

Re: Email immutability matters more in a world with AI

#112

Post by TheNewsIsHere » Sat, Oct 04, 2025, 4:20 AM UTC

ian-g wrote: post #39

mikepurvis wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think that's really the case, is it? At least, not in any formally-specified way. Modern email clients will extract metadata for things like airline reservations, shipping trackers, ICS calendar invites, etc, and give you live tiles specific to that time-sensitive info, but it's very clearly supplementary and at least in GMail none of it is pretending to be part of the message itself.

Narvar's tracking emails are mostly-image And on the one hand, it's cool as hell to see your email update itself to show tracking progress On the other hand, just send me a new email. It's fine, I promise.

And if I’m ordering something of consequence, you’re damn right I want the time stamped paper trail of its movement you avowed.

Re: Email immutability matters more in a world with AI

#113

Post by dlcarrier » Sat, Oct 04, 2025, 5:38 AM UTC

Flere-Imsaho wrote: post #49

dlcarrier wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Self hosting? I can't even visit simple static web pages without Cloudflare blocking me because my web browser isn't sufficiently trackable. There's no way they're letting self-hosted email messages get through.

Could you expand on this? I use everything I can to block trackers, spy ware, etc and have never been "Cloudflare blocked".

I would like to know what your're running, too, in case I can find a better workaround.

I'm running MX Linux, Arch Linux, and FreeBSD, and usually use Seamonkey or Pale Moon, and if I absolutely have to I use Thorium.

Some websites using Cloudflare services, or other similar services, first load a landing page, historically with a captcha checkbox to verify that I'm human that would let me through, after completing. More recently, it'll outright say that I am denied access, or when I check the box it switches to a throbber that spins indefinitely, or it unchecks itself.

Some web pages, like eBay, will let me through initially, then at some point all tabs I have open will simultaneously switch to an unpassable captcha.

Re: Email immutability matters more in a world with AI

#114

Post by Flere-Imsaho » Sat, Oct 04, 2025, 7:41 AM UTC

dlcarrier wrote: post #113

Flere-Imsaho wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you expand on this? I use everything I can to block trackers, spy ware, etc and have never been "Cloudflare blocked".

I would like to know what your're running, too, in case I can find a better workaround. I'm running MX Linux, Arch Linux, and FreeBSD, and usually use Seamonkey or Pale Moon, and if I absolutely have to I use Thorium. Some websites using Cloudflare services, or other similar services, first load a landing page, historically with a captcha checkbox to verify that I'm human that would let me through, after completing.…

Debian Linux, Brave browser, and host file modifications by: https://github.com/StevenBlack/hosts

Re: Email immutability matters more in a world with AI

#115

Post by ElevenLathe » Mon, Oct 06, 2025, 1:37 PM UTC

canadiantim wrote: post #80

WrongOnInternet wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with this approach is that it is easily bypassed. Simply point your camera at a high quality monitor playing an AI generated video, and there you go, and authenticated AI video. In the future, video evidence is going to be as convincing as it was for 99.9999...% of human history. We survived with out it in the past. We'll survive without it in the future.

What does it mean for the court system though, what happens to video and image evidence?

Good eating for "expert witnesses" that can verify/debunk videos in court.