a) cookies are already very human-readable (perl -MCGI::Cookie -le"die CGI::Cookie->new(-name=>'name',-value=>'value',-expires=>'+2d')" yields name=value; path=/; expires=Sat, 24-Jan-2004 01:34:00 GMT seems alwfully readable to me)

b) Why yes, just use JavaScript or JavaScript::SpiderMonkey

c) What's going on is you need to become a browser (or as smart as one). There have been a lot of Seekers Of Perl Wisdom posts about this (the easiest method is to use a browser and see what it does, the mimick accordingly).