Will the Internet cookie crumble?

Cookies are often misunderstood. Here’s how a cookie works.

While you visit a website, data about you is being gathered. That is
data that you volunteered, or that the site gathers regarding which
pages you requested. This data is then loaded into your computer in the
form of something called a “cookie.” Programmers at Netscape chose the
term cookie to indicate some sort of a treat the website could gobble
whenever it wants to update its information on you.

When you visit the Netscape site for information related to cookies, you will find Netscape
claimed there was no reason for the name cookie. However, I can tell you
there were plenty of reasons for calling this data packet a cookie. In
the early days of web programming (just a few years ago), simultaneously
juggling these bits of information from multiple web browsers led to an
unexpected event of losing track of the data. Web programmers often
referred to this as “dropping your cookies.” They were actually likely
to use the more graphic term, “tossing your cookies.”

You can turn on and off cookies by going into your browser’s options
configuration or browser preference settings.

But why turn them off? Cookies are generally harmless. Basically,
only the data that you supplied to the website is loaded back into your
machine in the form of a cookie. Any other data the website loaded is
just worthless data that particular website will decode or use.

For example, if at one time you had entered your name on the page of
a particular website, that website can load your name back onto your
machine in the form of this small file called a cookie. The cookie file
can also contain other information, like which pages on the website you
visited, or other information you volunteered while using the website.

The cookie file is given a reference name that the specific website
will request of your browser the next time you visit that particular
site. You may have stumbled across a site you visited for the second or
third time, when you received a surprising greeting, like “Hello Bob.”
That is, if you told the website your name was Bob. Chances are good
this is a cookie. It is from your machine, providing the web server this
name from your last visit to the website.

Cookies are generally harmless, and cannot read data from your hard
drive. They only contain the data written into the cookie by the website
you visit. Cookies are not capable of reading your email address or any
other data you configured on your computer. They are files containing
data from a website, written into a file for later retrieval from that
website.

Upon turning your browser’s cookie setting off, you will find it is
cumbersome to navigate cool, complex web sites. This is because cookies
are most often used to contain data related to your visits — data
directly related to your immediate navigation, interests or custom page
preferences, preferences that you told the website to establish for you.

There are many websites that continuously attempt to look for and
load cookies on your machine. This helps the web server keep track of
your needs. If you turn off cookies, chances are good you will become
bombarded with annoying messages until you again enable cookies.

Since cookies are small data files, it’s not cookies you need to
worry about. It’s Java. Also of concern is Java Scripts, depending on
your outdated browser version level. Update your browser — it’s free.
Java consists of actual programs that load on your machine and run. Yes,
programs that load and run.

Last week’s article generated many responses. Here are a few. I do
not endorse any of these, but I love to include interesting responses
and links for your own evaluation.

James of e-gold.com said this site may interest you:

http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/faqs/hacker-howto.html
I think the distinction is a bit more complex than you make it sound.
Your basic point — that governments lust to snoop on ‘net behavior —
of course stands.”

Greg of skilledtech.com offered us all the following:
“After reading your article I would like to pass a couple of links on to
you, please feel free to pass them to your readers in a follow up
article (if you so desire).

Surf, e-mail, chat, telnet, and post to newsgroups in total privacy.
It’s a simple concept, but so far only partially attainable.”
www.zeroknowledge.com/products

Jim of Team Hush said:
“Bob, read with great interest your “Is your government an Internet
spy?” piece. You very effectively stated in layman’s terms what
routinely happens to e-mail. Have you by chance checked out our site,
hushmail.com? We’re offering
free, web-based, end-to-end, strong encryption (1024 bit) to the masses
to protect their e-mail and perhaps make a few bucks in the bargain.”