title: What are "signed" cookies in connect/expressjs?
body: <p>I am trying to figure out what "signed cookies" actually are.
  There isn't much on the net, and if I try this:</p>
  
  <pre><code>app.use(express.cookieParser('A secret'));
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>But still... Cookies are still 100% normal on the browser, and I don't really know what "signed" is here (I was sort of hoping to "see" some weirdness on the client, something like the data encrypted using "A secret" as salt?)</p>
  
  <p>The documentation says (<a href="https://github.com/expressjs/cookie-parser" rel="noreferrer">https://github.com/expressjs/cookie-parser</a>):</p>
  
  <blockquote>
    <p>Parse <em>Cookie</em> header and populate <code>req.cookies</code>
       with an object keyed by the cookie names. Optionally
       you may enabled signed cookie support by passing
       a <code>secret</code> string, which assigns <code>req.secret</code> so
       it may be used by other middleware.</p>
  </blockquote>
  
  <p>Does anybody know?</p>
  
  <p>Merc.</p>