NSA releases 642-page Internet research guide

The National Security Agency recently released a 642-page guide titled "Untangling The Web: A Guide To Internet Research" under a Freedom of Information Act request. As the major purpose of the guide is to "help you understand how to use the Internet more efficiently," there isn't much in the document worth noting - perhaps made clear by the fact that the 642 pages are almost entirely unredacted.

There are sections about "Uncovering the 'Invisible' Internet" and "Internet Privacy and Security," but most of this information is common knowledge or significantly out of date (the guide was produced in 2007). However, the section on "Google Hacking" is interesting. Google hacking is "using clever but legal techniques to find information that doesn't belong on the public Internet." Here's one of the tips:

[S]earch by file type, site type, and keyword: many organizations store financial, inventory, personnel, etc., data in Excel spreadsheet format and often mark the information "Confidential," so a Google hacker looking for sensitive information about a company in South Africa might use a query such as:

[filetype:xls site:za confidential]

I wouldn't suggest spending time reading the whole thing, but it was worth a couple minutes. Maybe.