BKCOOKIE.RVW   980320

"Cookies", Simon St. Laurent, 1998, 0-07-050498-9, U$34.95
%A   Simon St. Laurent
%C   300 Water Street, Whitby, Ontario   L1N 9B6
%D   1998
%G   0-07-050498-9
%I   McGraw-Hill Ryerson/Osborne
%O   U$34.95 800-565-5758 fax: 905-430-5020 louisea@McGrawHill.ca
%P   361 p.
%T   "Cookies"

I am probably more aware of cookies than most.  I do allow cookies,
but I get a warning each time somebody tries to set one on me.  (For
those who are aware of cookies, this fact alone will tell you that I
do not spend a lot of time "surfing".)  I know that you cannot
download a number of things off the Microsoft Website without they
feed you a cookie and you accept.  I know that a large number of
cookies are not being set by the pages I am looking at, but by servers
listing banners on those pages.  I know that PCWorld magazine holds
the record as far as I am concerned: thirteen attempts to set a cookie
on a single access to a single page.  I know that Clinique gets a
bonus, as far as I am concerned, for personalizing the page for the
user without setting a cookie at all.

So I was most interested to see this book.  I approached it with some
trepidation, I admit, since books on "new" and "hot" technologies do
not have a good track record, particularly those with some link to
business.  However, what I found was a book with something for
programmers, privacy advocates, and interested Internauts alike.

Chapter one explains what cookies are, and why.  It does this with a
series of analogies of different types of activities (mostly, but not
uniquely, commercial) that require some kind of memory through certain
stages of the process.  The structures of both the older version 0
Netscape and the newer RFC 2109 cookies are detailed in chapter two,
along with special notes (Lynx deletes *all* cookies on exit) and tips
(if you want to set an expiry date to maintain the cookie into the
future, note that you must set the path).  Chapter three provides the
user with detailed, browser-by-browser information on how to manage
cookies, including blocking options and storage methods.  It also
discusses proxy servers and add-in cookie blocking tools.

However, St. Laurent's major concern is for the effective programming
of cookies.  Client-side programming, with JavaScript and VBScript, is
covered in chapter four.  Server-side cookie programming, and the pros
and cons thereof, are discussed in chapter five.  Chapter six
demonstrates the use of cookies in combination with CGI (Common
Gateway Interface) programming for more sophisticated activities. 
Netscape's Server Side JavaScript and Microsoft's Active Server Pages
are covered separately in chapters seven and eight.  "Pure" Java does
not allow for cookie generation, but with the extensions to provide
connections between Java and JavaScript an applet can now feed and
check cookies, which chapter nine demonstrates.

Chapter ten looks at Microsoft Site Server, which has perhaps the most
effective, and potentially invasive, tools for collecting information
about Web users through the use of cookies.  St. Laurent explains the
various information gathering activities, and also presents effective
handling of both those who accept, and those who reject, cookies. 
Chapter eleven examines probable developments in cookies in the near
future, and briefly looks at the question of identity information
gathering by Web site owners.

There is some small irony in the fact that St. Laurent expresses his
own concern for balance in the overall presentation at the end of
chapter ten.  I am glad that he was worried about being biased in one
direction or another: it has made for a rational and clear
presentation of a topic which is currently rather overheated.  The
book fully appreciates both the needs and the concerns, and provides
not only the facts, but a lucid and clear-sighted analysis of the real
situation.

copyright Robert M. Slade, 1998   BKCOOKIE.RVW   980320