ONLINE-ADS>> Whose hand is that in the cookie jar?

Kenneth C. Jenks (mindseye_at_tale.com)
Tue, 15 Apr 1997 22:15:46 -0500

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Bob Stewart wrote:

>>Urgh. More misinformation. "...cookies are ominous strings of random
>>numbers that follow them from site to site."
>>
>>Aren't all cookies domain specific? Can someone show me an example of a
>>cookie written at one domain and read by another?

Yes, I've written some interlocking CGI programs that allow a CGI program on
your server to read domain-specific cookies sent from my server to the client.

The client loads a document on your server which contains an in-line image.
The image is a link to a transparent single-pixel GIF on my server that
includes a cookie. Your document refers to this in-line image with a unique
URL like http://tale.com/cgi/public_cookie.cgi?ID=89874938183957 where ID is
a random number. Later in your session with the client, a CGI program on
your server can ask a CGI program on my server for information about the
registered user by retrieving
http://tale.com/cgi/registered_user_info.cgi?ID=89874938183957 and giving
the same number. My CGI program uses the ID number to link these two
transactions so that registered_user_info.cgi can give you any information
I've collected about that registered user.

It's complicated, but it works. It is possible for your server to learn
everything my server knows about my registered users. But after some
internal discussions, we decided not to field this "public cookie"
technology. There would be too much public opinion backlash against it.

>>No wonder the average user is paranoid about them when the Internet press
>>doesn't even understand them.

They're complicated and hard to control. And people like me find loopholes
in the "domain-specific" aspect of the things.

>>I think cookies are destined to be the handle for Internet conspiracy
>>theorists. If it weren't for the fact that the earth is flat, people would
>>accept cookies. ;-)

Some sites, like www.microsoft.com, make it very annoying to reject cookies.
Many sites that use cookies attach them to every in-line GIF, making it very
tedious to manually accept or reject all of the cookies on such a site.

-- Ken Jenks, Editor-in-chief, Mind's Eye Fiction
http://tale.com/ -- The First Web Publisher
MindsEye_at_tale.com

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