This is possible because Lemmy doesn’t proxy external images but instead loads them directly. While not all that bad, this could be used for Spy pixels by nefarious posters and commenters.

Note, that the only thing that I willingly log is the “hit count” visible in the image, and I have no intention to misuse the data.

• Mlem - knows exactly that it’s Mlem.
• Memmy - sees Mobile Safari webkit.
• Voyager - same as Memmy.
• Thunder - just sees Mobile Client.

Oh neat, Jerboa doesn’t identify itself. Cool.

I’m fine with this. Instances shouldn’t proxy or cache images because it opens instance owners to a lot more liability than text. A client side setting to not load images in comments by default is better.

All these people correcting the result effectively giving useful data to improve data collection and detection methods.