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This story was printed from ZDNet Australia.
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Protect yourself from the cookie monsters

By Leena Pendharkar, 0
December 18, 2000
URL: http://www.zdnet.com.au/news/security/soa/Protect-yourself-from-the-cookie-monsters/0,130061744,120107742,00.htm


Take the distribution of cookies into your own hands with this web cookie explainer.

Remember when an "apple" was the rounded, edible, red fruit of a tree; a "bug" was a squishy insect with sucking mouthparts; and a "cookie" was just a small sweet cake?

Like some other childhood terminology, cookie has taken on new meaning in the digital age. These days say "cookie," and you are referring to one of the most important information-gathering tools for web-savvy businesses.

Created by Netscape and embedded in HTML code, cookies are information packets on your computer. Technically speaking, they are messages that server-side connections can use to store and retrieve information about the client-side of a web connection. A cookie is introduced to the client as part of an HTTP response usually generated by a CGI script.

If you are so keen as to look for cookie code in an HTML document, the syntax is as follows:

Set-Cookie: NAME=VALUE; expires=DATE;
Path=PATH; domain=DOMAIN_NAME; secure

How they do it
The process of collecting your browser's cookie is as follows:

  1. Your web browser requests a page from a web server.

  2. The web server returns to the web browser the requested page, and also a little "treat" â€" an instruction to the browser to write a cookie, or a data record, into the client-computer's storage.

  3. When you surf, each time you return to a particular web server, that entity checks your web browser for any previously stored cookies.

  4. If such a cookies exists, your browser transmits the record to the web server.

  5. When the web server receives a request that has a cookies associated with it, the server uses the cookies to "remember" you.

    Why they do it

    Cookies track the preferences, or web surfing habits, of users. They can:

    • Identify users.

    • Personalise individual settings, and prepare customised web pages for that user.

    • Help corporations compile demographic data about a group of users. While the threat to user privacy is a legitimate reason to distrust cookies, their placement is sometimes beneficial to the user. Cookies allow personalised web services to be delivered to your browser.

    These customised cookie markings can:

    • Save a great deal of time spent online entering personal data.

    • Provide easier accessibility to online shopping and banking.

    • Send products and services you might be interested in your way.


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