Chris Pierich
10:00 MWRF
Professor Giard
Cookies
When someone mentions the word cookie to me my first
thought are those round sweet dessert objects with
chocolate chips or candy baked into them, or even some
sugar cookies with icing on top.
This is what most people
think of when they hear the word as well and when you
search for the definition of cookies you get, “A small,
usually flat and crisp cake made from sweetened dough.”
(Dictionary.com). There’s also another definition given for
a completely different type of cookie, a cookie associated
with computer science.
In computer language cookies aren’t
always considered something to look forward to eating with
a glass of milk.
Another definition given by
Dictionary.com for cookies is “[a] collection of
information, usually including a username and the current
date and time, stored on the local computer of a person
using the World Wide Web, used chiefly by websites to
identify users who have previously registered or visited
the site.”
a cookie is.
This is the computer science definition of what
Now from this definition you can conclude
1
various ideas of if a cookie is something you want loaded
on your computer or not.
The everyday computer user who
travels the internet might not even know that they’re
collecting cookies by the hundreds everyday resulting in a
huge amount over a period of time.
So many questions are
surrounded by these small files that people have but the
first question we’ll explore is where did cookies
originally come from?
It is believed that the cookie was originally created
by the Netscape Corporation.
Originally a cookie was not
called a cookie; some story is behind the naming of the
cookie but no one really knows where the name came from.
Some believe “that cookie is a well-known computer science
term meaning "an opaque piece of data held by an
intermediary", a definition that seemed to fit. Another
source states that the term comes from UNIX objects called
"magic cookies". Whatever the origin, it appears that there
is no entertaining story surrounding its beginning, and
there was no attempt to make the term "cute" or
"amusing".”(Pepperdine University, Internet Cookies).
The
original purpose for the cookie has a good purpose. The
purpose “was developed to overcome a problem. In the early
days of the Internet, when a browser requested a web page
from a web server, the request would normally be treated as
2
an independent transaction. There was no way to "connect"
one request with a related request, i.e., there was no way
to see an individual request as part of a string of
requests. This concept of web server request independence
made the Web more efficient, but it made features (like
shopping carts) that require "remembering" users' actions
over a period of time difficult.” (Pepperdine University,
Internet Cookies).
For this reason the cookie was great.
Online shoppers and other people who want a site to
remember their information so the next time they log on
their information will be retained.
It made for more
efficient repeated requests to the same webpage.
The cookies main purpose for existing was “to identify
users and possibly prepare customized Web pages for them”
(What is an Internet Cookie?, Pagewise). The way a cookie
works is when a user requests a webpage from a server the
request is sent to that server along with the a cookie.
If
it is a users first time visiting a particular site then a
cookie was never created on the users personal computer and
therefore a cookie will not be sent along.
When the
request arrives at the server the server looks through its
database for the matching cookie number if, indeed, a
cookie is sent along.
It is possible, and happens very
often, that a cookie is not sent.
If no match is found the
3
server treats the user as a first time visitor and in turn
sends back a cookie of its own to the user with the web
page he requested.
But, if there is a match then the
server “creates the illusion of one user session spanning a
potentially long period of time.” (Pepperdine University,
Internet Cookies).
The server then sends back new
information for the existing cookie or an update.
Cookies
are used for many different reasons on web pages.
Some
just send back basic information and a customized web page
is created for the user that has possibly some of his
favorite things or just his name on a welcome screen.
What exactly makes up a cookie?
If they are indeed
just small text files what is it that makes them distinct
from other small text files on your computer?
different parts of a cookie.
There are
Some are more important than
others and without some the cookie would not work properly.
The different parts include:
“Name: identifies the cookie to the web server. A server
might use more than one cookie.
Value: a text string that the server wants to have stored
for potential later use if needed. A cookie value can be
null for purposes of clearing/zeroing out.
4
Expiration Date: the date indicating the end-of-lifetime
for the cookie. If the expiration is not set, the default
is end of session which generally means the end of the
browser session, even if the browser ceases accessing the
particular cookie's server before it (the browser) closes.
Path: the Internet address the cookie is valid within.
Pages outside the path can't use the cookie. If not
specified then the path defaults to the address of the
document creating the cookie.
Domain: the Internet domain that is allowed to use the
cookie. The server issuing the cookie must be a member of
the domain it tries to set in the cookie.
Security Indicator: a flag indicating if the cookie must be
used only under secure server conditions.” (Pepperdine
University, Internet Cookies)
These parts are similar in all types of cookies.
are also coded in only a few different ways.
Cookies
The most used
is java because mostly all browsers support java in some
form or another.
Another form is JavaScript on the webpage
itself so an actual program doesn’t need to be run
separately from the web page it can be run within the
actual code of the page.
5
There are two main different types of cookies, session
cookies and persistent or permanent cookies.
“If the
Internet cookie … is not needed after the browser session
ends, it is not saved; such a cookie is known as a
"session" cookie because it exists only during a browser
session. If the data contained in the cookie might be
needed in the future, e.g., the next time the client PC
connects to the same web server, it is written to a cookie
file on the client computer's hard drive; in this case the
cookie becomes a "persistent" or "permanent" cookie. These
persistent cookies or cookie files are what is commonly
being referred to when it is said that a computer has
cookies residing on the hard drive.” (Pepperdine
University, Internet Cookies).
Some examples of session
cookies are cookies that are used with “"shopping carts" at
online stores to keep track of items you want to buy” (What
is an Internet Cookie?, Pagewise).
Also, examples of web
sites that use permanent cookies are “news sites, banner ad
companies, and others who want to know when you return to a
site” (What is an Internet Cookie?, Pagewise).
There is nothing going on with cookies in a negative
fashion to your computer.
They aren’t programs so nothing
is running when a cookie is on your hard drive.
Even
though, cookies are looked at as a negative thing by many
6
people because of how some people use them in different
ways.
As said before, they are small text files stored on
your computer by a company or internet server to help
customize a web page or retain information about you.
Many
times though when a site sends you a cookie any sponsor of
that site that has a banner or ad on the page have some
right to the cookie that is sent to you and therefore can
send their own cookies even though you never visited one of
their sites.
These cookies can then be used to somewhat
track you across the internet, seeing what searches you
make, what sites you visit, etc..
After people heard about
this they felt that it was a type of spying going on and
wanted it to end.
Cookies are basically harmless, the only
harmful thing that a cookie can cause is for you
information to be given to people you don’t want to have
your info.
Because of this it is possible to disable the
collection of cookies on your computer.
The two main internet browsers, Microsoft Internet
Explorer and Netscape Navigator, have different ways of
disabling and erasing the cookies.
Not only are cookies a
problem with the hard drive but temporary internet files,
pictures, video files, and anything else that your browser
places on your hard drive to make it faster, could cause
other programs to act differently.
Deleting the temporary
7
internet files will erase all the information the browser
downloads on it’s own for the purpose of speed.
Plug-ins
are not a part of this folder so any file that you download
such as shockwave or a flash player will not be erased.
With Microsoft’s Internet Explorer the way to delete the
temporary internet files is to go to the menu bar and click
the drop down menu tools, then highlight ‘Internet
Options’.
The first tab is your ‘General’ tab, under
there, there should be an option to ‘Delete Cookies’,
‘Delete Files’ and ‘Settings’ in the middle of the window.
You can use this method to delete them when you want or you
can “go into the Internet Options... click on the Advanced
tab and scroll down to security. Then just check the box
that says delete Temporary Internet Files when the Browser
is Closed”(What are Internet Cookies?, Pagewise).
This
will cause all the files to be erased every time you exit
the browser window.
With Netscape it is different.
You go
to the Edit option on the menu bar then down to
preferences.
From there you can choose what type of
settings you want to browser to handle.
Cookies aren’t anything that the public or anyone
really needs to worry about at the given time.
Someday
cookies might evolve into more sophisticated files that
could cause some sort of damage like a virus or steal
8
information from your computer and send it to anyone that
wants to purchase it from someone else.
But right now the
cookie is just a simple text file that can’t cause any harm
to your computer.
The most it can do is to follow you
around on the internet to see what types of sites you
visit.
This is in a way possibly an invasion of privacy
but there are programs that prevent spyware types of files
from being ignored on your computer.
From now on when someone asks you if you want a cookie
will the term mean just “[a] small, usually flat and crisp
cake made from sweetened dough.” (Dictionary.com) or will
it mean “[a] collection of information, usually including a
username and the current date and time, stored on the local
computer of a person using the World Wide Web, used chiefly
by websites to identify users who have previously
registered or visited the site.”
To you it could mean just
a lousy text file on the computer that causes no harm or it
could mean an incredible file that can track you and sell
your information to buyers that want your information.
No
matter how you really look at it, in a negative or a
positive light, cookies aren’t going anywhere.
be updated and newer ones will be made.
They will
There’s no doubt
that cookies have made surfing the web and purchasing items
on it easier.
So it comes down to really what people are
9
going to allow.
The option to allow cookies or not is
already there so there’s no need to have some big debate
about cookies.
Cookies will only evolve into better things
in the right hands, or to evil things in the wrong hands.
It is also up to you to have them or not but cookies are
here to stay.
10
Reference Page
PageWise, Inc..<http://ohoh.essortment.com
/whatareinter_rucw.htm>, 25 October 2004.
Pepperdine University.
<http://arachnid.pepperdine.edu/planitpepperdine/helpdesk/I
nternet/cookies.htm> 20 October 2004.
11