I do use cookies to do something like this. When the user logs in I generate a session id string containing their username, a time-stamp and a random string. I store this id in the cookie and on the server. When they return to the site or view a new page the id in the cookie is compared to the one on the server. It is straightforward to add other checks to make the session id expire after a given time and things like that.

I think that from the security point of view this is adequate for many uses, though if you are sending log in details or session ids unencrypted it obviously isn't suitable for high security applications.

In reply to Re: Safely storing password by Bilbo
in thread Safely storing password by sdyates

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