{"id":6226,"date":"2013-09-10T08:13:35","date_gmt":"2013-09-10T12:13:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/?p=6226"},"modified":"2013-09-10T08:13:35","modified_gmt":"2013-09-10T12:13:35","slug":"google-hacking-a-how-to-from-the-friendly-folks-at-the-nsa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/google-hacking-a-how-to-from-the-friendly-folks-at-the-nsa\/","title":{"rendered":"Google Hacking: A How-to from the friendly folks at the NSA"},"content":{"rendered":"
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How to search like a spy: Google’s secret hacks revealed<\/h3>\n

\"google-hacking\"<\/p>\n<\/header>\n

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The National Security Agency just declassified a hefty 643-page research manual called\u00a0Untangling the Web: A Guide to Internet Research<\/em>\u00a0(PDF<\/a>) that, at least at first, doesn’t appear all that interesting. That is, except for one section on page 73: “Google Hacking.”<\/p>\n

“Say you’re a cyberspy for the NSA and you want sensitive inside information on companies in South Africa,”\u00a0explains Kim\u00a0<\/a>Zetter<\/a>\u00a0at\u00a0Wired<\/em><\/a>. “What do you do?”<\/p>\n

Well, you could type the following advanced search into Google \u2014 “filetype:xls site:za confidential” \u2014 to uncover a trove of seemingly private spreadsheets. How about an Excel file containing Russian passwords? Try: “filetype:xls site:ru login.”<\/p>\n

These are just two examples of the numerous private files that are inadvertently uploaded to the Internet, and can be accessed if you know the right Google search terms.<\/p>\n

Here are a few more:<\/p>\n

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Pretty neat, huh? Declassified information being what it is, though, some of the search tips can appear a little dated.<\/p>\n

And even if keyboard espionage isn’t really your thing, the document contains a number of practical tips anyone can use to become a better Googler:<\/p>\n

* Adding a tilde (~) immediately before a term will search for its synonyms. For example: “Scary ~animals” will also search for “scary creatures,” etc.<\/p>\n

* Repeating a word will help you find more relevant hits. For example a search for “java coffee coffee coffee” will cut down on the results about the programming language.<\/p>\n

* You can use Google wildcard (*) to replace a term in a query if you don’t know exactly what you’re searching for. For example: “Sacramento is the * of California.”<\/p>\n

Take a look if you’re interested\u00a0over here<\/a>. (Via\u00a0Wired<\/a><\/em>)<\/p>\n

This article orginally appeared in May 2013 on “The Week” – you can read the original article here<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

How to search like a spy: Google’s secret hacks revealed The National Security Agency just declassified a hefty 643-page research manual called\u00a0Untangling the Web: A Guide to Internet Research\u00a0(PDF) that, at least at first, doesn’t appear all that interesting. That is, except for one section on page 73: “Google Hacking.” “Say you’re a cyberspy for the NSA and\u2026 Read More »<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1462,1,1656],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6226"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6226"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6226\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6228,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6226\/revisions\/6228"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6226"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6226"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6226"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}