eb-lite GUI Communication.

I have a question about eb-lite's "authentication" section in the GUI 
spec. Namely, this section:

 >AUTHENTICATION
 >
 >To open the connection, the client sends the 8-byte cookie supplied by
 >the server as it starts (on stdout, or in a file called "authcookie" in
 >the config dir). The format of the authcookie file is:

Why a cookie? Will this not be terribly inconvient when eb-lite is 
running as a daemon or service, the computer reboots, and the cookie 
changes? What happens if you try to use someone else's copy of, say, 
ebnc or ebqt to connect to your eb-lite service (you're on a different 
computer, at a cybercafe...)? I don't quite understand why this method 
of authentication was chosen.

Why not use conventional passwords -- when you connect an eb-lite 
service, remote or local, you send the hash (SHA-1?) of the password. If 
it matches the SHA-1 of the password eb-lite has stored locally, then 
you're in. Else, you're out. Wouldn't this or something similar allow 
the remote host eb-lite is carried on be shutdown or rebooted without 
having to deal with changing cookies?

Just curious, is all.