Cookies?
Douglas Scott
I've seen alot of discussion on the cookie issue, even a web site that
will display some of the information that can be extracted from your
browser. Several utilities are now available that will delete the
cookie file automatically for you, but I would like to know if there is
an application or something out there that will display the information
that is available from your browser. Based on stories in the media
almost everything is available, but then others say that isn't true. I
don't want to be paranoid and just delete the cookie file, but I would
like to know what can and cannot be extracted from my browser. Anyone
got a clue?
Douglas Scott
Snuey
In article <31E593...@neosoft.com>, dss...@neosoft.com wrote:
[snip]
: I
: don't want to be paranoid and just delete the cookie file, but I would
: like to know what can and cannot be extracted from my browser. Anyone
: got a clue?
My Magic cookie file is all data (ie no resource fork) and I can open it
in any text editor that will open more than just files of type TEXT (such
as the shareware Tex-Edit Plus and many others).
There isn't much in there. That's comforting.
Some web sites -- such as the NY Times -- make you register and create a
password for yourself, and give you the option of storing the password so
you don't have to re-enter it every time you go to the site. These
passwords appear in my Magic Cookie file.
That's about all I know about my Magic Cookie file.
James "Snuey" Allen
sn...@pobox.com
Joel Klecker
|I've seen alot of discussion on the cookie issue, even a web site that
|will display some of the information that can be extracted from your
|browser. Several utilities are now available that will delete the
|cookie file automatically for you, but I would like to know if there is
|an application or something out there that will display the information
|that is available from your browser. Based on stories in the media
|almost everything is available, but then others say that isn't true. I
|don't want to be paranoid and just delete the cookie file, but I would
|like to know what can and cannot be extracted from my browser. Anyone
|got a clue?
Quite a bit of information can be gotten about you, but it has absolutely
nothing to do with cookies. Cookies are just a way for a web server to ask
a web browser to store something for it(for example, Hotwired can store
your username and password in a cookie so that you don't have to
authenticate yourself every time you visit). Cookies cannot provide
information that the server couldn't otherwise have gotten via other
means(such as normal access of web pages). Some web sites that offer
customized web pages(like <http://www.search.com/>) use cookies to store
them. If you really want to be anonymous while surfing the web see
<http://www.anonymizer.com/> (this also has the side effect of preventing
cookies from working).
--
|Joel Klecker |For the rest of my .sig, visit: |
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