If our experiment was successful we now have a message above that has used the information contained in the cookie (your new hacker name). This was done by using a script at the beginning of the page to retrieve the cookies value. The value was then passed to another script that used it in a message that was printed on the web page.

To further examine what an actual cookie, let's take a look at what the entire cookie looks like. The following is a sample cookie generated by the same script:

myname~~local~~/066780121634459479169150233629489509*
wwweprofSeCrEt%20StRiKeR~~local~~/09666533122949567855391116829489442*

Well I admit that it is not much to look at.

The first section (starts with "myname") is the name of the cookie. It is followed by the identification of the server. (In this case it says "local" because I stored the cookie from this script on the same machine that it was created from). This is followed by a bunch of info that is made up of numbers. (If you happen to be able to read what it says, then let me know!)

The next section starts with "wwweprof" and this is the code word that the retrieval part of the script looks for to find the saved value. After that comes the actual saved value (in this case SeCrEt StRiKeR) followed by another identification and a bunch of numbers.

As you can see, this wouldn't mean too much unless you were a computer and you knew what to do with the stored value once you had it.

I hope that this has cleared up a little of the mystery surrounding cookies. If you want more detailed information there are plenty of great resources on the web and in your text book. After reading this article they should be a little more decipherable.

Sincerely,

DaRtH ChAoS