新聞財經娛樂♬資訊 News Economy

I would like to know the cookie file format. I have taken one example cookie file from my
PC C:Ducument and SettingsAdministratorLocal SettingsTemporary Internet Files and I put
it as follow code area and attached file.
Actually it is text file and I know the first line items that is cookie name, second line is cookie value
and third one is domain name from . What is stand for from line-4 to line 8? And it seems it use "*"
at line-9 to terminate one cookie entry and start next new one , Right ?  Please advise , Duncan
line-1   uid  
Line-2  4dc15532b1945880
Line-3  addthis.com/
Line-4  2147484752
Line-5  3646169600
Line-6  30297400
Line-7  3179010992
Line-8  30150348
Line-9     *
Line-10     psc
               16
               addthis.com/
               2147484752
               3646169600
               30297400
               3179010992
               30150348
               *

uid4dc15532b1945880addthis.com/2147484752364616960030297400317901099230150348*psc16addthis.com/2147484752364616960030297400317901099230150348*locHK%2CMDAwMDBBU0hLMDAyMDIyMjk0MTAwMDAwMDAwVg%3d%3daddthis.com/2147484672314321433630167509379318841630149404*dtXaddthis.com/2147484672212921881630156379343763017630150344*di1304597170.1ODaddthis.com/2147484672242921408030296270299845897630149419*bt1304604902|00003I01000003J04000003Q014addthis.com/2147484672201446528030297195343763017630150344*                                  

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The deep value of cookies comes from the data base backed nature of web sites.  Let me try to explain with some examples.  Let's say you set a cookie on a client machine and at some time in the future, the client comes back to your web site.  With each page load, you can keep track of the client's interests.  You can know whether the client is shopping for cookware or shoes, and what pages resulted in the most purchases at the highest profit margins.  All of this sort of incredibly valuable business intelligence is facilitated by the cookie.

But the cookie itself only tells the server its name and its value.  So how can all this information be available?  It's because other programming running on the server keeps the data base up-to-date.  The cookie is merely a key into one table of a relational data base; the cascade of valuable information is kept on the server.  The tip of the iceberg, if you will.

I've seen questions here at EE and in other forums that go something like, "Is it save to keep my user-id and password in a cookie?"  That's the wrong question.  The right question is, "How can I set cookies that tamper-resistant, so I can trust them when I use them for keys to my data base of client information?"

For the most part you can trust all the browsers to return cookies with the name and value you used when setting the cookie.  And as a result you can trust any tamper-resistant cookie to be an accurate key to your data base.  Most security-conscious programmers (like those of us who have to handle money or important information) will supplement the cookie with a request for password authentication before we make a change to the data model or before we expose sensitive data.

HTH, ~Ray

The deep value of cookies comes from the data base backed nature of web sites.  Let me try to explain with some examples.  Let's say you set a cookie on a client machine and at some time in the future, the client comes back to your web site.  With each page load, you can keep track of the client's interests.  You can know whether the client is shopping for cookware or shoes, and what pages resulted in the most purchases at the highest profit margins.  All of this sort of incredibly valuable business intelligence is facilitated by the cookie.

But the cookie itself only tells the server its name and its value.  So how can all this information be available?  It's because other programming running on the server keeps the data base up-to-date.  The cookie is merely a key into one table of a relational data base; the cascade of valuable information is kept on the server.  The tip of the iceberg, if you will.

I've seen questions here at EE and in other forums that go something like, "Is it save to keep my user-id and password in a cookie?"  That's the wrong question.  The right question is, "How can I set cookies that tamper-resistant, so I can trust them when I use them for keys to my data base of client information?"

For the most part you can trust all the browsers to return cookies with the name and value you used when setting the cookie.  And as a result you can trust any tamper-resistant cookie to be an accurate key to your data base.  Most security-conscious programmers (like those of us who have to handle money or important information) will supplement the cookie with a request for password authentication before we make a change to the data model or before we expose sensitive data.

HTH, ~Ray

This article appears to be a pretty good introduction:
http://www.howstuffworks.com/cookie.htm

As always, the Wikipedia has a good and growing information set:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTTP_cookie

this would explain it:
http://weitips.blogspot.com/2006/04/cookie-file-format-of-internet.html