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How does Perlmonks know who I am?

by Superlman (Pilgrim)
on Jul 25, 2001 at 13:50 UTC ( [id://99609]=monkdiscuss: print w/replies, xml ) Need Help??

Out of curiousity, how is it that Perlmonks manages to keep track of who I am for the duration of my visit even if I have cookies turned off? I didn't see any hidden form elements containing my name... that was the only thing I could come up with at 7 AM.

Anyone?

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: How does Perlmonks know who I am?
by Chady (Priest) on Jul 25, 2001 at 14:05 UTC

    Sessions

    Update: and should I discuss how sessions work?

    Update 2: Sessions are made for situations like that, the sessions knows a specific browser that is running it, plus every child browser invoked by a Shift+Click. There is no need for a cookie for a session to know the browser, a new browser will log anonymous even if the other is still logged in, because it has a diffrent ID, and doesn't relate to the other session. So, the answer for the question is "Sessions", if the question was "How do sessions work?" then a more elaborate answer is in order. For now, this is all I give, downvote if you feel to.


    He who asks will be a fool for five minutes, but he who doesn't ask will remain a fool for life.

    Chady | http://chady.net/
      And what distinguishes one client from another where there are no cookies?

      I guess it could be done by tracking IP, referrer and User agent...

      --
      RatArsed

        I thought you *couldn't* do this reliably. When I look in %ENV there is a key called UNIQUE_ID which usually has a value like: OVN3hsdpVpAAAGiyLKs

        But I thought that UNIQUE_ID changed with every request?
        And IP tracking works right up to the point when you start dealing with AOL users or people with naughty proxy servers.

        If there is a magical bouncing ball, does anyone know where to find it and track it? I would LOVE to stop fiddling with cookies.

        update
        I thought I would mention that you can stick a unique number into the URL line and track the user's identity in the $ENV{'QUERY_STRING'}. But that is visible to the user and just plain yucky looking : )
        oakbox
        "If what I'm saying doesn't make sense, that's because sense cannot be made, it's something that must be sensed"-J.S. Hall

(tye)Re: How does Perlmonks know who I am?
by tye (Sage) on Jul 25, 2001 at 20:46 UTC

    If I refuse cookies, I get logged out on the next load. I don't think you have cookies disabled like you think.

    Perhaps you only have cross-session cookies disabled so that you can have a cookie that exists for the life of a browser but won't get saved to "the cookie file" and so disappears when you close your browser.

    If you don't check the "remember me" box when you log in, then PerlMonks only uses a short-term cookie ("session cookies").

            - tye (but my friends call me "Tye")
Re: How does Perlmonks know who I am?
by synapse0 (Pilgrim) on Jul 26, 2001 at 01:41 UTC
    As far as I know, when you disable cookies, you disable them from being *set* (This is true on my browser anyway, netscape 4.something on linux). Cookies can still be read, so I can allow the first logon cookie to be set then disable cookies and the cookies can still be accessed. Since Perlmonks is no longer setting cookies for anything, it works out fine. And it's true that sessions are meaningless unless there is some unique identifier (like a cookie or session #) that tells the server what session it's dealing with.
    anyway...
    -Syn0

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