Proactive IT Security
What are tracking cookies
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Date published: 2004-10-18 Date updated: 2008-12-30
Operations System(s):
Windows XP 32 bits
Windows Vista 32 bits
Windows 2000
Windows Vista 64 bits
Windows 2003 Server
Problem description
What are tracking cookies?
Problem solution
A tracking cookie is any cookie that is shared among two or more web pages for the purpose of tracking a user’s surfing history. Tracking cookies can contain (in text format) the following information:
- The name of the cookie,
- The value of the cookie,
- The expiration date of the cookie,
- The path the cookie is valid for,
- The domain the cookie is valid for,
- The need for a secure connection to exist to use the cookie.
You can also check out RFC2109 (obsolete) and RFC2965 for more information on HTTP State Management Mechanisms
Set-Cookie2 Syntax: The syntax for the Set-Cookie2 response header is
| set-cookie | = | "Set-Cookie2:" cookies |
| cookies | = | 1#cookie |
| cookie | = | NAME "=" VALUE *(";" set-cookie-av) |
| NAME | = | attr |
| VALUE | = | value |
| set-cookie-av | "Comment" "=" value | |
| | | "CommentURL" "=" <"> http_URL <"> | |
| | | "Discard" | |
| | | "Domain" "=" value | |
| | | "Max-Age" "=" value | |
| | | "Path" "=" value | |
| | | "Port" [ "=" <"> portlist <"> ] | |
| | | "Secure" | |
| | | "Version" "=" 1*DIGIT | |
| portlist | = | 1#portnum |
| portnum | = | 1*DIGIT |
