Author: Tina Long
Date: 17:00:34 03/24/00
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On March 24, 2000 at 07:21:42, Angrim wrote: >On March 24, 2000 at 06:15:29, Tina Long wrote: >> >>Today we got McAfee "guard dog", which among other things checks for computer >>invaders (my word). >> >>I have been on the net for 15 minutes and 11 (eleven!!) places I have never been >>have tried to place Cookies in my computer. Club Kasparov also tried to place a >>cookie. >> >>Call me naive, I'd never heard of cookies until today, and I'm amazed & >>disgusted. I've never heard of these companies or websites & they're planting >>"listening devices" in my computer. > >naive ;) Just relax Tina, an internet cookie is not a listening device, not >even a program. It is simply a short text string which the web site which >placed it can retrieve the next time that you visit them. Most sites that >place cookies on your computer do so because the web page designer thought >it was a neat idea(my opinion) and they are simply a minor waste of space. >Some sites actual have good uses for cookies, such as sending you a >cookie which contains the date that you last visited their site. Then the >next time you connect to the site they can read this cookie from your >computer and give you a "whats new" list. Since a site can only read >cookies that it sent you, and the contents of the cookie are only what it >sent, it is hard for a site to do much harm with a cookie. One thing that >may surprise you is getting a cookie from a site that you don't think you >connected to. Usually these are from the banner adds which are stored on >another site, but which your computer has to connect to to display the add. > >With most browsers it is fairly easy to view the cookies stored on >your computer, and easy to remove them. With Netscape on linux look in >the file ~/.netscape/cookies and each line that does not start with a # is >a cookie, ie. >.tripod.com TRUE / FALSE 980653868 CookieStatus COOKIE_OK >which is a cookie retrievable by any site in the tripod.com domain >named "CookieStatus" and with value "COOKIE_OK" >This cookie is a classic case of the webmaster thinking that cookies are >neato spiffy and sending them without any real purpose. >This cookie can be deleted with a regular text editor by deleting the line. >I expect that with Internet Explorer there is something similar. > >Hope that clears things up more than it confuses them, I sure got verbose. >Angrim Thanks Angrim, I agree a "good" cookie from a site I've visited is "good". Thanks for your "What's new" example, I see the worth in that. I have my "Guard Dog" now, & at least I can accept/reject any cookies. In one shop I will say "I'm Tina, tell me if you have....here's my interests...here's my phone number..." In another shop I will say "Just browsing thankyou". Thanks again, it's nice to hear both sides of the story. Cheers, Tina Long
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