Cookies may be set by the server with or without an expiration date. Cookies without an expiration date exist until the browser terminates, while cookies with an expiration date may be stored by the browser until the expiration date passes.* (*from wikipedia)
Cookie portraits are numbered portraits I send visitors for free every time they visit my website. This work is based on the same cookie technology that is usually used by big commercial websites such as Amazon to monitor the choices made by users on their websites and to present product suggestions. With the help of this technology, my portraits record the workstation environment settings of the connected user, sending him a very slim TEXT file containing information about his operative system, ports, kind of browser and a sentence with the explication of the project and a progressive number. This work speculates on the role of the online market and the possible distinctions between a man and a shopping cart.
How to get your cookie portrait:
The 2011 cookie has
been set to expire in one week after receiving it. So if you want
to save it follow these info:
Opera has a cookies4.dat file. With Firefox 3.0 and SeaMonkey 2.0 the cookie information is stored in the files cookies.sqlite and permissions.sqlite. In Firefox 2 or below and Mozilla Suite/SeaMonkey 1.x, cookies are stored in the
cookies.txt file and cookie site permissions are stored in the hostperm.1 file. That SQLite file cannot be read with a normal text editor as it is a mini database (SQLite). You can use sqlite-manager ("https://addons.mozilla.org/en-us/firefox/addon/sqlite-manager/")
Carlo Zanni, Cookie Portrait, 2002-2011-ongoing
Serial No: 723, /// This is you: REFERER: http://www.zanni.org/cookieproject/cookieproject.htm, USER_AGENT: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible, MSIE 6.0, Windows NT 5.1, SV1, .NET CLR 1.1.4322), REMOTE_ADDR: 84.221.233.45, REMOTE_PORT: 4369.
About this project: The artwork stored in your computer is a numbered NewNewPortrait by Carlo Zanni. Cookie Portrait was created in 2002 and after several years of silence it starts again in 2011. The container of the portrait is a cookie (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTTP_cookie). It is a portrait of one of your temporary mental identities. It represents the general state of your WorkStation and its environment.
-No feedback has been sent back to the server to monitor your activities. This cookie is just one way-
The artwork is unique, free and personal. It contains a progressive serial number and some settings of your computer in the moment you are surfing.
The cookie expires in one week after receiving it. To preserve it you have to save a copy in a new directory. You can also print it, frame it and hang it on a wall.
The artwork is the file, so you can visualize it as you prefer.
Thank you.
Carlo Zanni, 2011
www.zanni.org
Serial No: 723, /// This gets stored in the cookie-portrait: INGREDIENTS:::::, REFERER: http://www.zanni.org/cookieproject/cookieproject.htm, USER_AGENT: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible, MSIE 6.0, Windows NT 5.1, SV1, .NET CLR 1.1.4322), REMOTE_ADDR: 84.221.233.45, REMOTE_PORT: 4369, ABOUT THIS cookie-PORTRAIT: The artwork stored in your computer is an original and numbered NewNewPortrait artwork by CARLO ZANNI [a.k.a beta]. The form of the portrait is the cookie. It is a portrait of one of your temporary mental identities. It represents the general state of your WorkStation and its environment. Its aesthetic form -- you can find it in the TMP or cookie folder of your WS-- is the name of your personal WS followed by the name of the web that sent you the artwork. If you load the portrait with a blocknotes you will find a lot of information about you. ------ ::: No feedback has been set to monitor your activities. The cookie you received is just one-way ::: ------ The artwork is free and totally personal. All the artworks are different because they contain an ID and the settings of your pc in the moment you are surfing. To preserve the artwork which has an expiration date you have to copy and paste it in a new directory of your pc. You can print it on paper or videoproject it over your fireplace. This portrait is a file, so you can load it as you prefer. The kind of this portrait is ChocolateChipCookie and the strings over this sentence are its ingredients. Please come back to visit us to find new kind of cookie-portraits and to increase your collection ....... You can find more info about the author and NewNewPortraits at the following addresses::::www.zanni.org ---- www.newnewportrait.com ---- Carlo Zanni a.k.a. beta
Q. What is a Cookie?
A. A Cookie is an HTTP header containing a string that is stored on your
computer by your browser.
Q. Why are Cookies called Cookies?
A. Lou Montulli, wrote the cookies specification for Navigator 1.0, the
first browser to use the technology. Montulli states, "A cookie is
a
well-known computer science term that is used when describing an opaque
piece of data held by an intermediary. The term fits the usage
precisely; it's just not a well-known term outside of computer science
circles."
Q. How do Cookies work?
A. When you load a web page, the site puts a string into the HTTP header
during the page load. This information is sent to your browser which
saves it to your computer if it has Cookies enabled.
Q. How large can cookies be?
A. Up to a mere 4K each although Cookies are usually much smaller than
this.
Q. Do Cookies violate my privacy?
A. This has been an issue for debate for a few years. In general,
Cookies are a usefull tool and are NOT used for evil purposes but they
can be abused by tracking, and collection information about your surfing
habits; the sites you visit can be logged and tracked with the help of
Cookies.
Q. Do I need Cookies?
A. Yes and no. In general, you do not need Cookies to surf the web
although some sites require that you have Cookies enabled in order to
view their sites.
Q. Where can I get more information?
A. Doing a search on Cookies using your favorite search engine should
turn up plenty of information.
In addition, here are some good pages that deal with Cookies:
http://www.cookiecentral.com Cookie Central
http://www.epic.org/privacy/internet/cookies/ The EPIC Cookies Page
http://help.netscape.com/kb/consumer/19970226-2.html Netscape
Information about Cookies
http://home.netscape.com/newsref/std/cookie_spec.html Netscape Cookies
specification
Q. Can a website steal information from my computer
using Cookies?
A. No, a site can not obtain private information from Cookies. The site
can only store basic information like what kind of browser you are using
and other information provided by the server like what page you visited
on that site or any information that you may have submitted to the site.
Q. Why were Cookies created?
A. The internet is stateless meaning that data is not transfered from
page to page unless something like a Cookie is used. The Cookie
therefore serves to tell one page what happened on previous pages. They
allow the site to know about the user: how do they navigate through the
site, is traffic from the same visitors or unique vistors, what were
their previous settings.
Q. What is a session?
A. A session is its a web page or site's general condition: variables,
content, and settings. Session can be maintained using Cookies, URL
encoding, or form data. Otherwise, session is only active for the time
it takes to load a page.
Q. How permanant are cookies?
A. The length of time that cookies last varies. If no expiration is set,
the Cookie gets errased when the browser is closed. A cookie can be set
to expire in minutes to years but there is no way to set a Cookie to
last for forever. An interesting aside is that web servers can delete
cookes they have previously set by resetting the expiration to be
sometime in the past. The 2011 cookie has been set to expire in one week
after receiving it.