Internet Cookies

Cookies? What are they? (Are they edible?)

Cookies are basically small text files that are being stored in a user's computer. They contain and provide information about a user, to a website (web server) that the user is visiting. These files can be useful when it comes to personalization and even security (for example, authentication cookies).

(Unfortunately, they are not edible 😓)

For how long are they being stored?

Cookies can either be stored by a browser for a certain amount of time, or for as long as a user's browsing session is active.

How can these files affect a user's privacy?

Cookies can be used to de-anonymize a user by collecting and processing the data they contain in order to create and maintain a profile of said user. Thankfully, not all cookies are being used for such purposes.

What types of cookies are there?

Session Cookies: Are being kept temporarily and are deleted after a user's session is terminated (usually done after the browser's closed). As the name implies, these are used to track a session.
Persistent Cookies: These kind of cookies are stored for a predetermined amount of time.
Authentication Cookies: These are created when a user logs into their account and are pretty important when it comes to security. They work by associating the account information with a cookie ID string. This helps in verifying that the information is being sent to the intended user.
Tracking Cookies: Got to look out for those if you're into privacy. They keep track of user activity and send the information to the tracking service that's responsible for their creation. Such cookies are usually known as third-party cookies. Third-party-cookies come from a domain that's different from the one that a user is visiting.
Zombie Cookies: Commonly used by privacy-invading advertisement networks and malicious actors, zombie cookies make copies of themselves outside of the browser's cookie storage location. These copies are being used as a recovery whenever the previous cookie file has been deleted.
Supercookies: Similar to cookie files, supercookies are usually harder to detect and remove from a device because they tend to hide themselves in the browser's cache. Supercookies can access the information that has been collected by the usual tracking cookies. As such, supercookie files can reach a size of 100KB+. Supercookies are more commonly known as "cross-site tracking" cookies these days.

Works cited:

Γρηγοράτος, Β. (2008) Ασφάλεια Υπολογιστών και Διαχείριση Πληροφορίας. Αθήνα: Εκδόσεις Γκόνη (Greek).
Cloudflare. What are cookies? Available at:https://www.cloudflare.com/en-gb/learning/privacy/what-are-cookies/ (Accessed: 24 July 2024).
Awati, R. and Bacon, M. (2023) What is a supercookies?: Definition from TechTarget, Security. Available at: https://www.techtarget.com/searchsecurity/definition/supercookie (Accessed: 25 July 2024).
Stouffer, C. (2022) Computer cookies: A definition + how cookies work, Norton United States. Available at: https://us.norton.com/blog/privacy/what-are-cookies (Accessed: 24 July 2024).

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