Talk:HTTP cookie/Archive 1

message: I removed the following lines, following "Some sites contain images called web bugs (that are transparent and only one pixel in size, so that they are not visible) that place cookies on all computers that access them.":
E-commerce websites can then read those cookies, find out what websites placed them, and send e-mail spam advertisements for products related to those websites.
Companies that use this system defend it as an effective way to give consumers access to products in which they are likely to be interested.  If sites that place these tracking cookies are paid by the commercial operator, the revenue can allow them to place their content online at no cost to the creators.
Because ... that's just not accurate. Perhaps the author meant something different, but how do these "e" "commerce" companies get the users' email addresses? Let's not imbue cookies with some magic powers that don't actually exist.
My replacement text, in context w/ the line before: "Some sites contain images called web bugs (that are transparent and only one pixel in size, so that they are not visible) that place cookies on all computers that access them. A single source could have bugs on multiple sites, potentially tracking and correlating a user's activity on across multiple sites, assuming the other sites co-operated by placing the appropriate code into their own site."
This is also not accurate - transparent images cannot place cookies. They primarily use these 'web bugs' to track you by IP address. - 129.89.246.120 21:39, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Web bugs 

message: Should we add how to delete cookies for anyone panicked by reading this page?
--BozMo 10:21, 23 May 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  How to delete cookies 

message: I thought that the "Future of Cookies" might have been a little outdated, as it referred to the Brownie project that was no longer in development. I have changed this section to be "Alternatives to Cookies" and added P3P as a possible alternative. This is one of my first few edits, feel free to fix up any grammer, style etc - just please let me know so I can learn for the future. Joeldixon66 04:05, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Alternatives to Cookies 

message: Perhaps somebody could add an explanation about the difference between first-party and third-party cookies.  Are third-party ones just from domains other than the one you're browsing? (ie. from embedded images/plugins/frames that load from other servers?) — SimonEast 03:53, 14 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Third-party Cookies 

message: please help.
144.132.6.49 22:44, 12 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  How do i enable cookies? 

message: The section on browser settings is problematic: it is basically an howto and nothing more. That such a summary can be useful is clear; it's just not the kind of stuff for an encyclopedia (WP:NOT, Section Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information, point 8). I was thinking to replacing it with a summary, if nobody disagrees. Paolo Liberatore (Talk) 20:31, 25 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Browser settings 

message: Tools > Preferences > Advanced Tab > Cookies
*Decide when to accept 'normal' cookies (sent by the Web page you are viewing) and 'third party' cookies (sent by other companies, typically advertisers or Web site analytics companies)
*Manage your cookies with the Server Manager, to delete or set preferences for individual servers
----
That this material is useful is clear. I do not know where should be placed however. Any ideas? Paolo Liberatore (Talk) 12:13, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: [[Opera Software]] [[Opera (web browser)|Opera]]

message: What's missing (anyone can add to this list):
# percent-encoding can be used in the name=value;
# RFC 2965, and in particular the Set-Cookie2 line
# domain matching; in particular, two/three dots are necessary, etc.
# multiple Set-Cookie in the same header
# I think that the "myths" are not believed any more; any proof of that?
Anything else? - Liberatore(T) 16:40, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Hi. Section "History of cookies" below this talk page gives some more details about sources. This fact that cookies were invented for shopping bags is reported by Jay Kesan and Rajiv Shah in "Shaping code. Chapter II.B." This is also consistent with what Kristol says (that cookies were developed at Netscape as part of the development of a system for a customer). Tizio, Caio, Sempronio 10:24, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Missing 

message: To do, as suggested in the peer review:
# history of cookies: see links below
# ... 
(more to be added). - Liberatore(T) 21:01, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  From peer review 

message: Some links:
* http://www.anu.edu.au/people/Roger.Clarke/II/Cookies.html
* http://portal.research.bell-labs.com/~dmk/cookie-ver.html (see web.archive)
* http://www.rajivshah.com/directory/privacy/cookies/
* http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/04/technology/04COOK.html?pagewanted=print
* http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?doid=505248.505263
* http://arxiv.org/abs/cs.SE/0105018
May be relevant to cookies in general, also. - Liberatore(T) 14:01, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  History of cookies 

message: Removed from the article:
:Finally, the Brownie project is a SourceForge open source project intended to replace HTTP cookies. Brownies were to be for sharing across multiple domains, as opposed to cookies that are (supposedly) constrained to a single domain. The project is no longer in development.
While checking for some information about that, I realized that this project not only is not under development for at least 1 year now, but has never notable . - Liberatore(T) 19:32, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  The Brownie project 

message: This is a more schematic description of the history of cookies, with sources of every single statement. Modify this list if incorrect or missing something. - Liberatore(T) 14:18, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  History of cookies 

message: perhaps there should be information about where cookies typically go on people's computers with the different operating systems - windows, mac, linux, and so on.  i know most browsers have a "clear cookies" button, but that doesn't always delete them all.
:This information would be of interest for many users. The problem is that articles like "HTTP cookie" tend to easily become little how-tos (see above for a part that was removed from the article). A solution would be to add a link to an external site that explain how to delete cookies, rather than telling it in the article itself. - Liberatore(T) 17:19, 2 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  location? 

message: The page says:
The expiration date is specified in the "Wdy, DD-Mon-YYYY HH:MM:SS GMT" format. As an example, the following is a cookie sent by a Yahoo! mail server (the value string has been changed):
Set-Cookie: DX=g=1&q=abcd>r=sdfsfo; expires=Thu, 15 Apr 2010 20:00:00 GMT; path=/; domain=.yahoo.com
i.e. the page says the date is DD-Mon-YYYY then quotes a cookie with the format "DD Mon YYYY" (i.e. with spaces instead of dashes) -- and it doesn't mention the fact that one or the other is wrong, or if indeed both are allowed...
Please could someone fix this ?
:Please fix it yourself, SqueakBox 15:11, 2 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I suspect that some date formats that work in practice are not allowed by the specification... I'll have a look at the specs tomorrow, just to be sure. - Liberatore(T) 17:04, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

text: SqueakBox, I know from history that if an "unknown" like me made changes, they'd just be blindly reverted. Thanks - anon. - 21:30, 2 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Not necessarily. As you have discussed this issue on the talk page, and if you add a reasonable summary, it should stick. - Ta bu shi da yu 02:14, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

text: Apparently, there is a "hidden feature" by which cookies with spaces instead of dashes are accepted even if that is not allowed by any of the specifications. In order to say that in the article, I'd need an external source, but I could not find any, so I have just changed the example to one that follows the standard. - Liberatore(T) 19:59, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Error in this page 

message: Why  is  it  called  a  "cookie"?  And  why  isnt  that  in  the  article?  //  Gargaj 02:41, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Good question. There is some discussion at Talk:Magic cookie. As far as I can see, it's not clear where this use of the term "cookie" comes from. That's why is not mentioned in the article. - Liberatore(T) 19:27, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Should we note that there is speculation where the term "cookie" came from? - Ta bu shi da yu 08:01, 2 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Web cookies got their name from magic cookies; how magic cookies got their name is probably better left to the magic cookie article, IMO. - Liberatore(T) 15:53, 2 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Etymology? 

message: "Cookies are used for realising functionalities that are specific to a user. Cookies were introduced for realising a virtual shopping basket where the user can place item to purchase. This way, a user can navigate a site where items are shown, adding or removing them from the shopping basket at any time."
That doesn't really flow that well. - Ta bu shi da yu 08:00, 2 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: -) - Liberatore(T) 15:56, 2 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Rephrase? 

message: HTTP_cookie#Cookie_theft_2 seems like a How to on steeling cookies.  How to's should be moved to wiki books but also.  Who puts a How to on things we shouldn't be doing.  It's like posting a "how to make a bomb" or a "How to hack into Wikipedia and obtain the passwords of users checking sources of pages and Vandalize under their user names to get them blocked"
I suggest you remove the code--E-Bod 03:06, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  How to 

message: Ahhh the page sudenly dissapered?.   It's a Featured page how could that happen?--E-Bod 03:11, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The admins are purging part of the history that contains personal information. Unfortunately, this has happened before in other featured articles.—G.He 03:14, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: WOW That is so COOL--E-Bod 03:15, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It appears it has happened again...—G.He 03:16, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: How come this seems to be happening so often lately (within the past week) when I've never seen it before? Or has it occurred frequently before and I just missed it? -albrozdude 03:18, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The first time I've seen it was at the Albatross article (Note the "/bad"'s in the article history...). During that time, I've heard that this type of vandalism was rare.—G.He 03:19, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

text: Yeah, what's the deal? I only just noticed it yesterday during one of the periods when the last FA was temporarily a redlink. This log is ridiculous. Are the perps getting banned or what? Melchoir 03:20, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Attacks are from the Wikipedia Vandalization Research Institute. Codier 03:21, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

text: How come they don't ban the IP... Banning the Accounts isn't really useful because they can make new ones, but I think very new accounts cannot modify semi-protected pages..... Maybe the vandals are using dialup, which shares IPs?—G.He 03:24, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

text: Wow. Unfortunately you can't purge my Google Desktop Page catch stored locally on my computer. (darn another edit Conflict)E-Bod 03:25, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

text: I agree 100%. I'll remove it. Shanes 03:41, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ahhh 

message: Normally wouldn't leave a note here for such a minor edit, but, in light of recent vandalism on FA, thought it might be a good idea. The term "on the other hand" is used at least three times in the article and tends to stand out as the author does not seem to be making a "on one hand THIS and on the other hand THAT" argument.  The lines in question do not need a bridge statement of any kind. The writing is strong enough on its own.  Good job, btw.204.76.128.217 15:07, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  On the other hand . . . 

message: This phrase appears in the introduction to the article.
Is it actually correct? Surely 'text' is better?
'Textual' sounds a bit contrived to me...
fatbarry2000 17:40, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I also think that "text" is better than "textual information". - Liberatore(T) 18:31, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Textual Information" 

message: OK, I'm being pedantic so slap me! But, here's the rule from the Oxford English Dictionary under an: 'Some people retain the use of an before words beginning with a sounded h e.g. an hotel, an historian. Historically this was justifiable because the h- was dropped in these words, but today this is not the case and a hotel, a historian, are now the preferred forms.'
I know, I know :-) El Gringo 22:15, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: But is it "An H" or "A H" (the letter). I'm not really a native speaker, but it sounds wrong to me to say "A H" (or "A HTTP"). Shanes 22:19, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It's correct to say an HTTP cookie, not a HTTP cookie, because what you're really saying is an aitch-tee-tee-pea cookie. Since the letter H begins with a vowel sound when pronounced, it should be preceded by an, not a. This is why it's never correct to say a honor, even though the word honor begins with an H; and it's correct to say a unicorn, not an unicorn, even though unicorn begins with a vowel. It's not the letter that starts the word that determines a or an—it's the sound that starts the word. —Bkell 22:43, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: At first I was unsure about this, but my Prentice Hall guide seems to agree with you. 71.254.72.181 23:08, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

text: Yes, and so does the Oxford English Dictionary, which says an is "now retained only before a vowel sound" (note that it is the sound that is important, not the spelling). Wikipedia has an article about this too; see a, an. —Bkell 23:20, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

text: Generally, when a word is shortened to its initials, an is used anyway. Ian¹³/t 19:22, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  A HTTP not An HTTP