Cookies

Cookies are little files that are stored on your computer by many websites that you visit.  They are used to help companies and organizations track individual users of their sites, and also to customize their sites to your preferences.

In a way, they are innocent enough, but in another way, you'll soon see that many other people are also keeping track of your activities. 

Here's what a cookie file looks like.  This one was put on my machine when I visited the Lego toy site, lego.com:

SITESERVER ID=55ad2dbca5af44812fa52072e6039bd7 lego.com/ 0 642859008 31887777 4264024032 29316858 *

It's a simple string of letters and numbers that assigns a unique ID to my machine, identifies the website that was visited, and contains other information used by the website for its own purposes.

The website that places the cookie on my machine cannot identify who I am, but with a few more pieces of information, they can know all about me.  

For instance, if I simply order something from their site, they now know my name, credit card number, address, and they can link this to the machine ID they earlier assigned to me.  Now they know every time I visit they site, and quite possibly my shoe size, too.

I just searched on my machine for any files or folders called "cookies" and found that I've got over 500 of them from different websites.  It's enough to make Orwell turn over in his grave (George Orwell wrote about "Big Brother" watching us in his book 1984)!

At any rate, to find the cookies on your machine, go to "Start" "Find" then type the word "cookie".  You'll soon see cookies from all the websites that have put a cookie on your machine, plus the date the cookie was put there and the date it was last updated.  

Again, this is simply another way you can monitor how your computer is being used, for better or worse.  

I share this to let you know that we all really do leave a trail everywhere we go on the Internet, and it's wise to simply stay pure before God and men.

Whew!!  Before your brain shuts down with all this technology and information, let me recommend just a few more sites you might want to visit in the future on this topic, then I'll close.