Why does the UserSessionService create a *state* cookie?
craft()-&gt;userSesssion-&gt;saveCookie() is basically a fancy wrapper for craft()-&gt;request-&gt;getCookies()-&gt;add() that (as you've discovered) does some key and value based hashing to ensure that cookie data hasn't been tampered with between requests.  Which is especially useful if, for example, cookies are used to maintain user session.

If that's not the behavior you're looking for, you can use PHP's setCookie method (like LJ Cookies and the Cookie plugin do) or you can interact with craft()-&gt;request-&gt;getCookies()-&gt;add() directly outside the context of the UserSesssion service.