Cookies: What are they?

A cookie is a unique string generated by the website server that your browser will store as a file and send back to the server with all subsequent page requests or form submissions. This enables the server to 'maintain state'. If a user is to be able to log in (eg to access pages only available to members of the site) or if a user adds an item to a shopping cart, it is necessary for the server to know that the browser now requesting a members only page or the cart checkout page, is the same browser that logged in or added the item to the cart.

Two types of cookies can be issued by the server, session and persistent. Session cookies are deleted automatically by the browser when it closes but persistant cookies are saved until their expiry date unless they are manually deleted. Persistent cookies can be used to link sessions together whilst session cookies can only link pages visited within a session.

Can cookies be used to track users?

As cookies can link together pages a user visits, an overall 'picture' of user behavior can be garnered. However this process is anonymous. Unless you become a site member or place an on-line order, your IP address is the only thing a website can know about you. The IP address can tell the website which country the user is in and even which town, but it cannot be used to determine WHO the user is. Only the telephone companies know who was using any given IP address at any given time and in general, only the police and intelligence services have the legal powers to demand this information from the telephone companies.

Other tracking means

Cookies are not the only method by which browser activity can be tracked to link page visits and thereby profile user behavior. The IP address also serves this purpose although less reliably. If the IP address is dynamic it will tend to survive a session but cannot be relied upon to survive the period between sessions. Cookies were invented as a means to solve this problem.

Other tracking methods involve embedding codes within the URL of a page and any links within the page. All these forms of tracking achieve the same objective so websites should state exactly how cookies are issued, stored and used, how IP addresses are stored and used, and if any other tracking mechanisms are deployed.

Our Cookie/IP tracking Policy

This website is deployed using the HadronZoo::Dissemino program. This is open source public domain software available from this website as part of the HadronZoo Suite comprising inter-Alia, the Dissemino program and the HadronZoo C++ Class library upon which Dissemino is entirely based. The behavior of Dissemino can be determined from the source code. This code can be modified but not without the knowledge of the site vendor. We are running Dissemino without modification.

Dissemino uses the IP address to determine the country or state of the user but not the town. The IP addresses are stored and against each is a count of visited page type, not the pages themselves and not the visit sequence. The logfiles could reveal this information but logfile analysis software would be needed to link page visits. HadronZoo does not possess or have any intention of acquiring any such software.

Dissemino will issue a single session cookie in response to the first form submission by any given visiting browser to a form marked for cookie issue. No further cookies will be issued for the duration of the session. Not all forms will be marked for cookie issuance. The recommendation made by and followed by HadronZoo is that cookies should not be issued unless it is absolutely necessary to maintain state. Examples of this would be, membership application, member authentication and addition of items to a publically available shopping cart.

As there are is currently no facility to log into this website and the contact-us form requires no authentication, cookies are never issued.

Privacy Policy

Under no circumstances whatsoever, will HadronZoo ever sell or otherwise pass data to third parties. However, while all reasonable steps are taken to ensure data security is not breached, HadronZoo does not accept responsibility for information exposures occurring as a result of a cyber attack. We undertake to make public all cyber attacks and report them to the appropriate authorities. HadronZoo will always cooperate fully with authorities investigating the passing of unauthorized information. If anyone has any reason for believing that services running on any HadronZoo server are involved in the the passing of unauthorized information, be these services on behalf of ourselves or any of our clients, please report it to us using the Contact Us Page.