Tuesday, November 16, 2021

GitHub Notifications and Mail Privacy Protection

Peter Ammon:

#macOS Monterey users, are you finding your #GitHub notifications are all marked as read? It’s probably Mail loading GitHub’s tracker pixels remotely. Uncheck “Protect Mail Activity” and the notifications come back.

Tracker pixels are mainly used for shady purposes, so even benign and clever uses like this seem destined to break.

To be sure, “Protect Mail Activity” is a great feature and I’m keeping it enabled. My intention was to highlight why notifications go missing in GitHub’s Inbox after upgrading to Monterey. I wish GitHub had an option to disable these tracker pixels.

Hartley Charlton:

Apple’s legal documentation on Mail Privacy Protection indicates that the feature is available for iPhone, iPad, and Mac only, but security researchers and developers Talal Haj Bakry and Tommy Mysk have discovered that since the Apple Watch does not hide a recipient’s IP address, it can compromise the overall security provided by Mail Privacy Protection.

Previously:

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