On Mar 22, 2007, at 1:53 PM, Courtenay wrote:

>
> On 3/22/07, S. Robert James <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>> On Mar 22, 10:44 am, Brad Ediger <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>> Now, I click "Log Out", and get up from the library's computer, only
>> to let the person waiting after me to retrieve the old cookie....  
>> That
>> innocuous user id just became both sensitive and transient.
>
> You click 'log out' and it deletes the cookie.
> This is no different to a normal server-based session.

Oh, but it is. With a server-based session, I "Log Out" and my  
session can be purged from the server, leaving the old session ID  
worthless. With cookie sessions, the cookie is still valid to the  
server even if deleted from the browser's cookie repo. There is no  
way to selectively expire sessions from the server.

Server-side: someone gets my session ID, I log out, they present the  
session ID to the server -> worthless.
Client-side: someone gets my session cookie, I log out, they present  
the cookie to the server -> impersonation!



--~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Ruby 
on Rails: Core" group.
To post to this group, send email to [email protected]
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
For more options, visit this group at 
http://groups.google.com/group/rubyonrails-core?hl=en
-~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---

Reply via email to