Oh yes, good one - and I was going to add, why are you using CGI but not using it?

#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use CGI ;
my $q = new CGI;

my $co_userid = $q->cookie(-name=>'user',
       -value=>'dummy',
       -domain=>  '.jplan.com',
       -path=>  '/cgi-bin/') ;
my $co_password = $q->cookie(-name=>'password',
       -value=>'hispassword',
       -domain=>  '.jplan.com',
       -path=>  '/cgi-bin/');


print $q->header(-cookie=>[$co_userid,$co_password]),
      $q->start_html({-title        => 'CTB Discussion Index',
                      -style        => {'src'=>'../../ctb/css/header.c
+ss'},
                      -bgcolor      => '#FFFFFF',
                      -topmargin    => 2,
                      -marginheight => 2,
                      -leftmargin   => 2,
                      -marginwidth  => 2),
      $q->p('Cookie is set'),
      $q->br,
      $q->end_html;
[download]

As for the password, I'd set a session ID instead, that expires after a certain length of time (store it in a text file or DB somewhere for later checking).

cLive ;-)