C is for Cookie
09-18, 09:55–10:35 (Europe/Lisbon), Virtual

"This site uses cookies"... no kidding! Every site uses cookies! Cookies are a much maligned, but essential part of the web experience. But what actually are cookies? Why are they needed? How do they work? How are they used? How are they misused? And how have they changed as the modern web as evolved?

In this talk, you'll get a complete history of browser cookies, and a deep dive into the cookie specification. You'll learn the various ways your Django site uses cookies, and how others can use use cookies on your site. And you'll get a preview of some changes that may be coming to the way the web uses cookies.


Whether you like it or not - if you're using the web, you use cookies. HTTP is a stateless protocol; without a mechanism to preserve a user's state between requests, many of the web interactions we take for granted would be much more difficult. For most websites, cookies are that mechanism.

This talk will provide a deep dive into the history and use of cookies. You'll get a walk through of the what and how of everything that can be done with cookies, and you'll see how to control those properties in your Django site. You'll also get a brief overview of the the ways cookies can be abused, and how governments are intervening on behalf of users. Lastly, you'll learn about some proposals that are working their way through standards organizations that could radically change how sites use cookies.

And, if you're really, really good and stay all the way to the end, I'll share my secret family choc-chip cookie recipe.

Dr Russell Keith-Magee is the founder of the BeeWare project, developing GUI tools and libraries to support the development of Python software on desktop and mobile platforms. He is also a 14 year veteran of the Django core team, and for 5 years, was President of the Django Software Foundation. In his day job, he wrangles data pipelines for Survata.

He is a frequent speaker at Python and Django conferences around the globe, sharing his experiences as a FLOSS developer, community maintainer, and (unsuccessful) startup founder. He lives in Whadjuk Noongar country - otherwise known as Perth, Western Australia.