Re: The Way the Cookies Crumble.

[Tesla Coil <tescoil@rtpro.net>]

Mike Packard's comments of 25.8.98 denoted >>
Cloudmaster's comments of same day denoted  >

> Why does anyone have a problem with cookies?  There's an
> "expire" attribute for them which isn't any real long length
> of time (often it's set to expire in a minute or so), and
> they're not compromising anyone's security.

A friend's 13-year old son keeps his browser set for "warn me
before accepting a cookie."   He tells of a cookie from the
NBA's web page set to expire in 2058.  I cannot say that this
reflects any sinister intent; a psychopathological degree of 
confidence in the stability of the universe, perhaps...

> Disabling cookies doesn't prevent web page maintainers from
> knowing where you've gone, because there's this neat file
> that's known as an "access log" that can be used for that.
> Cookies can only be read by the site that created them, so
> only the creator knows what you've selected/done on his pages
> - which I don't really see as a problem.

The provider of the page and cookie are often not identical.
Advertising companies are centralized apart from the multiple
sites from which they set and retrieve cookies.  This permits
collection of a variety of statistics no single page provider
could attain.  Apart from any concern for privacy, there is
sufficient motive for countermeasures in that this data serves
the same profession whose past achievements have included junk
mail, spam, telemarketing, and infomercials.

>> I guess I don't know how cookies work, but I figured that
>> most of the information that cookies provide would still
>> be provided even if you delete them right away.  But piping
>> things to /dev/null is just fun anyway, so that's all that
>> matters to me.  :)

> I'll give you that - /dev/null is cool. :)

A black hole of irresistible attraction...

Couple observations upon the method proper --

1) Earlier versions of Navigator permitted refusal of cookies
only manually, through the "warn me before accepting cookies"
option.  A symbolic link to /dev/null automates refusal for
those unpersuaded to install Communicator.

2) Netscape mail folders are kept as files in the "nsmail"
directory.  Mail from known lusers can be filter preferenced
into a new folder symbolically linked to /dev/null and thus
downloaded directly into The Void.  I've had no need for
this, but it could be rendered more sophisticated with a
function to automatically delete the filter at a specified
date/time.  One could then issue citations of offense and
60-day sentences to the chill file--for greatest impact,
accompanied by elaborate configuration details useless to
the recipient who as likely doesn't have a Real OS :)


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