Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2020 May 23

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May 23

Unblocked images in Outlook

In Outlook mobile app, I unblocked an image within a spam mail by accident, as I wanted to click the i for Info instead. Is my device at risk? Splićanin (talk) 01:23, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

well, they know at least your OS (everything in the "user-agent" string) and your IP now. Technically, if they're particularly determined and vile, there's nothing preventing them from launching an all-out attack on that IP (perhaps even an automated one and tailored to your OS.) I personally wouldn't worry (moreso as this isn't exclusive to blocked images in emails - you reveal those things to a server by requesting any file or page whatsoever on the internet), but to be extra sure I would get a new dynamic IP (by resetting the DSL connection on my router, or just power-cycling it) if I was on wi-fi, or turning off, then on the mobile data connection, if I was on the mobile network (or just power-cycle the device too, for good measure.) Aecho6Ee (talk) 03:23, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

the purpose, from what I understand, of blocking images by default in the first place, was to keep spammers from doing analytics (at the very least, checking if the email account is active) by using tracking pixels and to frustrate their efforts of getting past spam filters by sending image-only emails. Aecho6Ee (talk) 03:27, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

• @Splićanin: Basically, no. To put it in precise terms, it doesn’t give the sender any more information than clicking on a link in the e-mail, which you have surely done at some point. The biggest risk is that the spammer gets your e-mail address (they do this by inserting different images/links in the messages sent to different e-mail addresses, so when you access the image/link, they can look up which e-mail address they sent it to). This is no risk to your device at all.

Sure, they could launch some kind of attack on your IP. But you risk that anyway, just by connecting to the Internet (I’m sure I’ve seen a better reference, but I can’t remember where now). It’s not really something to worry about, for most users. Brianjd (talk) 14:06, 28 May 2020 (UTC)

This was very helpful. Thanks a lot. It's a mobile phone, no idea how to change the IP on it. Talk me through, please? Splićanin (talk) 07:38, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

I just tried it on my mobile. The IP (the one the phone has on the mobile data network) doesn't change when I turn mobile data off and on again nor when I power-cycle the phone. Your best bet therefore is to just wait... (it likely already changed - several times, too - since you posted the Q - the "turnover" seems to be much faster on the mobile network than residential broadband...) Aecho6Ee (talk) 17:38, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

This will depend completely on your mobile providers. For example those I've used in NZ will change IP when you disconnect from the network. This includes restarting the phone, and going into airplane mode. Turning off mobile data on the phones I've used, I suspect it just disables access internally on the phone. Yet I'm fairly sure there are some mobile providers who provide very sticky IPs especially for IPv6, just like some fixed internet providers do. Nil Einne (talk) 10:30, 24 May 2020 (UTC)

Sorry I meant to say "turning off mobile data doesn't seem to change the IP (at least in the short term) on the phones I've used". Nil Einne (talk) 13:36, 29 May 2020 (UTC)

RAID vs ZFS

Not a serious question: disruptive user copying questions from other sites.
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Which is good for data corruption protection ? Ram nareshji (talk) 05:13, 23 May 2020 (UTC) The design purpose of these technologies might be the same, but they are different to the point that you can implement both of them, none of them or either one. Raid is strictly a redundancy technology, and works by virtualization, it presents two phyiscal drives as one to the operating system. ZFS is a file system and offers many more features other than redundancy, mostly about providing visibility of hardware failures, this is in stark contrast to the RAID approach where disk failures might be invisible. Raid would be a good choice if you just want things to work, you don't mind spending money on hardware, and you want to save time. ZFS would be good if you want things to work efficiently, you want to understand your system, and you work at a scale and domain where looking into low level storage bugs is a worthy endeavor. --TZubiri (talk) 07:17, 23 May 2020 (UTC) So Raid mirror the data and ZFS copy the data ? Ram nareshji (talk) 09:47, 23 May 2020 (UTC) Raid mirrors the data, yes. But ZFS is a file system which, among other things, mirrors data, copies data and identifies physical failures. --TZubiri (talk) 10:07, 23 May 2020 (UTC) If original data is unreadable so Mirror data becomes unreadable also? Ram nareshji (talk) 16:27, 23 May 2020 (UTC) If the corruption came from a bad disk write then yes, but if it came from a physical disk failure, then no. --TZubiri (talk) 22:23, 24 May 2020 (UTC)