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?
Hmmm - it doesn’t have the etymology, but The entry for cookie at the Jargon File explains what it is.
The term dates back for years and the origin is lost to me.
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
Off-hand, I’d speculate the phrase originated from the doped up '70s 
“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.
C3 wrote:
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.
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.”
Here’s a possibility for the etymology, though I have supporting evidence. Websters Unabridged has this definition:
Could “what one has recently eaten” translate to “what sites one has recently visited”? This may be a bit far fetched.
I BELIEVE the first use of “magiic cookie” was in the X-Windows machine authentication protocol, MIT-MAGIC-COOKIE.
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.
don’t forget about jack chick’s evil cookie. wish i had a link, though.
Ask and ye shall receive. That would be the infamous Death Cookie.