stupid question: cookies

[C3]

I'm probably missing something that's obvious, but why are cookies (as in the software files that identify a user on a website) called cookies?

[douglips]

Hmmm - it doesn't have the etymology, but The entry for cookie (http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/jargon/html/entry/cookie.html) at the Jargon File (http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/jargon/index.html) explains what it is.

The term dates back for years and the origin is lost to me.

[Kyberneticist]

At least it was in the early days of the web. Some browsers used to store the cookies in a file called MagicCookie, I think.

The Jargon file has an entry on magic cookie.
http://www.science.uva.nl/~mes/jargon/m/magiccookie.html


The phrase `it hands you a magic cookie' means it returns a result whose contents are not defined but which can be passed back to the same or some other program later.


Off-hand, I'd speculate the phrase originated from the doped up '70s :)

[yabob]

"magic cookie" is the old jargon that inspired the term, however the original netscape cookie spec dropped the "magic" and simply referred to them as cookies:

http://home.netscape.com/newsref/std/cookie_spec.html

The page I refer people to for an explanation of cookies says that Macintosh browsers use the "MagicCookie" filename:

http://www.cknow.com/ckinfo/cookies.htm

Perhaps other implementations do as well.

The ultimate source for "magic cookie" seems to be lost in the ozone somewhere.

[CurtC]

C3 wrote:
...cookies (as in the software files that identify a user on a website)...

A minor peeve of mine is that anytime I read a description in the popular press about what cookies are, including technical-enough publications that they should know better, they always refer to a cookie as a "file."

Although I believe that IE implements cookies as separate files, other browsers do not - they keep cookie information from multiple sites in one cookie file, so that each cookie is just one entry in it. I guess the problem is that if you don't call it a "file," what do you call it? I'd prefer "piece of information" or something like that.

[G.B.H. Hornswoggler]

Originally posted by CurtC
A minor peeve of mine is that anytime I read a description in the popular press about what cookies are, including technical-enough publications that they should know better, they always refer to a cookie as a "file."

Although I believe that IE implements cookies as separate files, other browsers do not - they keep cookie information from multiple sites in one cookie file, so that each cookie is just one entry in it. I guess the problem is that if you don't call it a "file," what do you call it? I'd prefer "piece of information" or something like that. [/B]

If you want to be pompous (which is my usual preference), you could refer to a single cookie as a "datum."

Or perhaps a "snack."

[JeffB]

Here's a possibility for the etymology, though I have supporting evidence. Websters Unabridged has this definition:

5 cookiespl slang : the contents of one's stomach : what one has recently eaten

»she got sick and tossed her cookies«

Could "what one has recently eaten" translate to "what sites one has recently visited"? This may be a bit far fetched.

[friedo]

I BELIEVE the first use of "magiic cookie" was in the X-Windows machine authentication protocol, MIT-MAGIC-COOKIE.

[Kyberneticist]

Originally posted by JeffB
Could "what one has recently eaten" translate to "what sites one has recently visited"? This may be a bit far fetched.


Unfortunately the origins stretch back before its use on the web.

[Tzel]

Originally posted by Kyberneticist
Originally posted by JeffB
Could "what one has recently eaten" translate to "what sites one has recently visited"? This may be a bit far fetched.


Unfortunately the origins stretch back before its use on the web.

I think that's the point. This older definition of "cookie" may have translated into this newer, technologically advanced definition. Although, I don't buy it myself. I agree with JeffB that it just sounds too far fetched.

[jb_farley]

don't forget about jack chick's evil cookie. wish i had a link, though.

[manhattan]

Ask and ye shall receive. That would be the infamous Death Cookie (http://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/0074/0074_01.asp).