Cookies and Security

Cookies are (usually) small files that internet sites use to store data about your visit to that site.  For example, if you go to yahoo, the code in the page you visit will store a cookie about that visit.  The next time you visit the site, before the page displays, the code will look up the cookie and, if found, will use the cookie to "improve" your site experience by speeding up certain actions based on your past behavior, which is stored in the cookie. (That was a long sentence.  Sorry)

For general information on where cookies are stored, you can google a phrase like "What are cookies"  You'll get lots of hits.  As an example, read this Microsoft Answers article.

If you are curious, this page discusses cookies and gives an example of web page code used to create a cookie.  As a prerequisite to understanding this page:  most web pages use the javascript computer coding language to display and manage the web page.  When you go to a site and you have javascript enabled in your browser (the default), the javascript code will run, both before and after the page is displayed.  (Note: there a tons of computer languages used by web designers to implement web pages, with javascript being the most popular language for coding "functionality," rather than the look of the page.

There are two types of cookies, those stored by the "flash player" and the rest.  Note that in the referenced Microsoft Answers article, flash cookies aren't discussed.  It talks about the two types of cookies being those that are persistent and those that are used only in that session. The reason flash cookies aren't discussed is that the article predates the rash of recent spyware infection methods that use flash cookies to infect your computer or to steer your browser to infected web sites.

Cookie security is a huge cookie jar of topics.  Most of the topics are too technical for the typical user.  It's not that the authors are lazy, but that cookies are inherently technical; it is very hard to come up with non-technical words that are instructive.  My challenge is to make the cookie topic understandable.

For Mac users, iPad users, etc... every kind of internet device has cookies.  That is because the cookie is a browser tool; in general, if you use a browser you will have cookies (unless you explicitly modify the browser controls to NOT process cookie code).

Does this make sense?  Let me know.  Ask your questions in the comment section below.

What I am going to do is to write separate articles on the major topics associated with cookies.  When I get to it, I'll come back to this blog entry and link to the articles.