WARNING:careful, gmail might display images,read thread carefully 5/11/2009

[bend_over_ebay]

it appears gmail has been having trouble with there "display images" option in the emails today. i logged in to check a few different accounts only to find that the first email i opened up was displaying images all the sudden. i'm kinda worried now about one of my accounts now. i opened a "message from ebay member" one..

[NO ID]

Just dont click the links/pics - is it still happening?

You can always make sure your settings are set to not display pics.

You should be ok though - just dont click.

[GreenBean]

bend,

What are you running? XP, Vista, IE? I upgraded the latest XP and have had this problem for the past 4 days

[gurusgrafx]

hasn't done it to me. running vista and I never update anything... as it usually seems more unstable.

[bend_over_ebay]

Originally Posted by GreenBean

bend,

What are you running? XP, Vista, IE? I upgraded the latest XP and have had this problem for the past 4 days

i run vista 64 with firefox and haven't updated or changed a thing in weeks. i went to the gmail forums and noticed lots of activity with peoples "display images" option being reset and/or "won't stick" lately and figured mine was affected also. i say it would be wise to turn off browser images completely if you use the webmail version. I think I'll be setting up outlook or some other software to IMAP access my gmails from now on so something silly like this doesn't get any accounts shut down.

i thought if you opened an email on a stealth account from a suspended ip you're in trouble. would make sense if ebay generated images intended for one legit recipient and a suspended ip was accessing them it could create a link.

[Jonas]

Turn pictures off in your browser when reading web mail. Don't trust the webmail site to block images as maybe ebay found a way to bypass it.

I had the problem pop up on about 1/3 of my gmail accounts. One of the accounts, I could not re-enable the option to NOT display images.

Other affected accounts mysteriously started displaying images again - oddly, only for some ebay mails and not for any email from anywhere else. Only ebay and only certain ones. Was able to turn them back off in every case except one.

Since I only access each email under the appropriate windows login that matches the ebay/pp account the email addy is associated with, it wasn't a tragedy for me.

gmail accounts not connected to ebay/pp were completely unaffected.

I can't explain why it might have happened, but I have been studying the problem since the moment it occurred, 3 days ago. I'll post back if and when I establish anything solid.

Paranoia sometimes pays.

[lakeman]

That also happened to me, about a week ago. I logged into gmail and images were being displayed. It also wasn't a problem for me, because I use separate user accounts. The next day it stopped displaying images. I'm not sure why, I didn't change any settings.

[oompaloompa]

I dont understand, are you saying that ebay is accessing googlemail.com stored flash/cookies or that they are seeing the IP somehow, i thought that was impossilbe under gmail?

I dont have flash on any off my windows users at the moment, am I still at risk?

I access all emails on each account of gmail under just one user because I thought I was safe, I look at all gmail accounts everyday. It would take too long to keep switching just to view emails on dozens of accounts.

my gmail says external images not displayed, and gives options under it, always display images from ebay.uk etc.

I think it is the safest thing to do.

What is method or mechanism that ebay could see multiple emails for different accounts?

Can you advise?

That is how mine has been set. Images off.

A few days ago, the images turned themselves back on for certain ebay messages (yellow button and watched items) for about 1/3 of my accounts. I didn't turn them on.

oompaloompa, I can't give any specific advice yet. Still studying the problem. For now, I guess be extra careful and only open each gmail account under the same rules you use for stealth ebay login. Change windows login first, then do your thang!

[Jonas]

If it's only eBay, then eBay has found a way to bypass gmail's block. Now there's no way to contact a human at gmail so you can't report it.

For me, it was only some ebay mail. Not the regular spam type ebay stuff (seller newsletters).

I use Firefox, and lately I've noticed ebay and PP access causes my top bar to behave differently than it used to - and differently than it currently does for other sites. I can say that I strongly suspect ebay and paypal are trying to get more control over browser behavior.

Also, just as an experiment, I set my flash storage to zero for everything, deleted all stored stuff manually, and then wandered around ebay and paypal both. Stuff got stored anyhow. 'splain me dat!

I'm about ready to start running a linux box with some obscure browser with redirect of all cookies and objects to the Eff Tee Cee (or some other) main site (bypassing my system), just for access to ebay and paypal.

[lakeman]

Same with me, it was only for questions asked through ebay.


Jonas, I doubt Ebay found any way to bypass gmail's image block, because it only lasted for 1 day for me. It is now back to blocking images.

[ebaykilla]

i thought anything from gmail only shows gmail's ip anyway when this is sent back to the sender...so does this actually matter?

[bend_over_ebay]

Originally Posted by ebaykilla

i thought anything from gmail only shows gmail's ip anyway when this is sent back to the sender...so does this actually matter?

the pictures in the email are loaded from the viewers ip. if you click on the properties of the image, you'll see that your browser loads the image from ebay/paypal and not on a google server.

i think this problem is with the "display images" option when your reading messages via gmail webmail. their webmail software has been "forgetting" if you want images displayed or not. it is a bug on gmail's side - not ebay hacking their system..

[GreenBean]

bend,
Thanks for posting about this info. Just the sort that the forum needs to win battles with ebay. Cheers

Update:

Earlier today I manually turned off all images and confirmed that images were not displaying.

All email from ebay coming to any and all of my gmail accounts is now DISPLAYING images at of 2:00am EST 05-11-2009.

I am accessing my gmail accounts directly from Firefox, not from a POP or IMAP client.

[GreenBean]

^^^Conclusion? Be very cautious until further notice?
Asking just to keep everyone up to speed with this.

Currently, I would be very cautious.

You can log in to gmail and view your message list safely. It doesn't matter what IP or Windows Login you use for viewing the message list. However, do NOT open any messages from ebay unless you are on the proper IP to open a particular ebay message. If you are using the wrong IP, switch IP before you open.

Reason for caution: images inside the email can contain beacons (also known as web-bugs, clear gifs, and 1 pixel gifs). I have not seen flash embedded in any emails yet, but who's to say they won't start at any moment.

If you open an email from ebay and a message is displayed, you could be linked. Even though the mail itself sits on gmail, the embedded images are dynamic links and will load the data from ebay itself. This could allow ebay to read a cookie or set a cookie if no cookie exists. Also, your IP could get logged during the process of loading the images in the email. You may see an image - such as the Respond yellow button. You may not see an image - such as a clear gif or a blank gif spacer way down in the footer where you never look. Just because you don't see an image, doesn't mean an image is not there.

You won't know if you are safe or not until it is too late.

Suggestion would be to check all your gmail message lists from any login you like and from any IP you wish. Just -=*DON'T OPEN*=- any of the messages in the list unless you have MATCHING IP/Login.

If anyone is not clear about what I am saying, please ask in this thread or PM me before you make a mistake. If you see me on MSN or Yahoo Messenger, you can tag me there, too.

Originally Posted by GreenBean

^^^Conclusion? Be very cautious until further notice?
Asking just to keep everyone up to speed with this.

[Lyda]

I just started listing yesterday on 7 month old, aged account with 5 buyers feedback and Gmail attached. The new account is on different window user, but on my main IP that I permanently changed from old suspended IP before opening this Ebay account 7 months ago (have cable connection). I am not a big fan of Gmail anyway,getting lost in it and having little hard time with it, but followed advise of the forum..So, just wanted to confirm.. Would it be really safe for me opening and reading Ebay emails -questions from buyers, in my main windows user without switching window users to do that? The IP is correct....Also, is safe just to open and read but not click on anything in the email? Seems like that's what VicVelcro says... just want to confirm. Thanks.

Lyda,

If you have the correct windows user and the correct IP, you can safely open the ebay stuff within gmail.

If you are in the wrong windows user or the wrong IP, DO NOT OPEN EBAY EMAIL. Even viewing one is not safe. It does not matter if you click anything inside or not. If you open it and see an image at all, it can track IP. It can read or leave a cookie.

Until the problem with image display is corrected, be very careful.

I'm still working on figuring out why and how this has happened. I will keep everyone posted. I have confirmed that several people are having this happen. Some people had it only happen one or a few times. Some people like me have had it happen a lot.

I am currently checking a suggestion made to me by NO ID. So far, it's holding up just fine. I'm going to keep watching for a bit, just to be sure. If it solves the problem, I'll write some decent instructions and post here.

[Lyda]

Wow... Thanks.