.onion URL via text message

When I text only a functional .onion URL to an iMessage recipient, Apple is somehow able to add the correct favicon/apple-touch-icon to the message despite the fact that the content should not be accessible at all to anyone when I’m connected to my provider or my home WiFi.

What have I missed here?

18 points · 4 comments · view on lemmy.world

4 Comments

TheHobbyist@lemmy.zip · 7 pts · 1y (3 replies)

Are you sure this is not handled on-device?

lars@lemmy.sdf.org · 1 pts · 1y (2 replies)

No. But even if it is, how would the icon appear if I have never visited the .onion site?

on-device

You don’t mean like a pre-existing list of potential .onion sites that iOS users may one day visit, right?

TheHobbyist@lemmy.zip · 1 pts · 1y (1 reply)

I can't say for sure, but I message could easily visit the website to get the icon. This is how signal works when you send a website, it visits the website to also share the website name and a screenshot.

lars@lemmy.sdf.org · 2 pts · 1y

This is exactly how Apple and almost all messaging apps work for almost all http: and https:. But there are no Apple-developed TOR-protocol products.

Apple has easy access to Google’s icon if I message a link to, say, https://google.com; how can Apple emulate that behavior if I message a link to http://fully-functional-domain-with-identifiable-branding.onion?