More on cookies

[Walter Lewis]

Thomas Dowling wrote: [and I brutally snipped]
>That said, I still don't know what sites are using cookies for.  One post
>mentioned that the Apache server *can* be set to issue a cookie on your
>first hit, in order to track how long you stay at the site.  I don't find
>this a very compelling reason and don't believe it represents all the sites
>I've seen using cookies.

My guide to Cold Fusion (an NT based CGI engine) says, in part:

Cold Fusion can use cookies to dynamically send variables that can be 
stored in the browser for days or even months until their scheduled 
expiration. Cookies are domain specific, and can be sent securely, 
establishing good grounds for private exchange of data between your 
server and your client's browser.

Cookies are a simple but powerful new tool that enables a host of new 
types of applications to be written for Web-based environments. Shopping 
applications can now store informattion about the currently selected 
items, and sites can store per-user preferences on clients; sites can 
then have clients supply those preferences every time they connect to 
that site. Cookies are also one of the most efficient ways to implement 
simple database-driven security authentication systems."

...the example then goes on with a Customer ID kind of application. I 
could see this in Z39.50 gateway applications to track a browser users 
session ID; to avoid having students log in to InLibrary WWW clients for 
otherwise passworded databases...

Walter Lewis
Deputy Chief/Systems
Halton Hills Public Library