Google PDF Search: “not for public release”

https://www.google.com/search?as_q=&as_epq=not+for+public+release&as_oq=&as_eq=&as_nlo=&as_nhi=&lr=&cr=&as_qdr=all&as_sitesearch=&as_occt=any&safe=images&as_filetype=pdf&as_rights=&gws_rd=ssl

by webmonkeyuk • 11 years ago

268 56 11 years ago

google.com

ocdtrekkie• 11 years ago

This is pretty interesting. One did say "Not for Public Release UNTIL", so could presumably be intended, but in a lot of cases webmasters probably didn't think something would be found and indexed by Google wherever they put it. And were wrong.

seiji3• 11 years ago

This is a great example of the house of cards all our network systems are built on top of.

Imagine this scenario: you maintain a network of web servers, database servers, file servers, etc. They all combine to generate a large website used by tens of millions of users every month. One day you are just doing a cursory look over a certain server, but you see something strange. Someone is logged in to your server. And they have a Russian IP address.

What do you do? Obviously, the first step is you login to your edge routers and null route all of Russia. GFTO. Next, you've got an idle session on one server. What were they doing?

How can you reconstruct what they were doing? bash history? maybe. Network forensics? Your network probably isn't recording every historical connection between servers—99.9999% of the time useless—but critical in this case. File system access? Your file system probably isn't logging every historical access—useless 99.99999% of the time—but would be really freaking useful in this case.

So, you investigate their history, double check some database logs, check netstat, check lsof, and in the end, you really have no idea what they were doing at all. Our systems don't leave enough bread crums around to reconstruct even interior hostile activities, much less semi-intelligently disallowing Google to not index confidential information when accidentally left exposed.

jonathonf2• 11 years ago

WRT detecting Google doing indexing, it's actually trivial. Web server logs will clearly show Google's web spider(s), and if you want you can set some monitoring (lots of methods here, all the way up from a cron job running a grep).

I can't remember the quote exactly, but if you're reacting to a breach it's too late.

gcb0• 11 years ago

the magic of "turn-key solutions"

when you decide to buy something for $x instead of paying someone who knows what they are doing to implement something with proper standards for $5x show on things like this

maudineormsby2• 11 years ago

A lot of these are redacted and appear to be FOIA or similar requests that have been fulfilled.

maudineormsby2• 11 years ago

And then again, after looking, some are clearly not.

Forbo• 11 years ago

There's a whole collection of this kind of search engine query at Hackers for Charity:

http://www.hackersforcharity.org/ghdb/

ErikRogneby• 11 years ago

This was one of the most ironic things I found: https://s3.amazonaws.com/reviz-tutorials/The_Pirates_Code.pd...

_tjry3• 11 years ago

Trying "Index of /backup" gave me a heart attack.

Apofis• 11 years ago

Holy shit... you weren't kidding. The first result is a BANK for Christ's sake... man.

subliminalpanda• 11 years ago

Looks like some MS Access databases, and wow (for the bank)

edit: clarification

yellowapple• 11 years ago

Today I learned that the Windows version of Perl is somehow associated with criminal behavior on the high seas.

ck2• 11 years ago

Now subtract -"not for public release until"

oskarth• 11 years ago

There are even more "Top Secret" documents.

https://www.google.com/search?as_q=&as_epq=not+for+public+re...

(The above is sarcasm).

rthomas6• 11 years ago

One of them was. It was just from 1960 and probably declassified.

misiti3780• 11 years ago

wow: http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/TENNlethinjec.pdf

schoen• 11 years ago

The "not for public release" portion of that document (pp. 72-75) is not included in the PDF.

unsignedint• 11 years ago

They should have at least have set an owner password for these documents. (In practice, they are not effective preventing people to disregard limitation that you set on the document, but at least it'll exclude documents for indexing at least by Google.)

r3bl• 11 years ago

I think the bare minimum would be to put them all in one directory and use robots.txt to hide them from Google.

Sure, it's weak, but at least it won't be accessible through Google.

cvsv• 11 years ago

Assuming filetype:docx is even worse?

qupear2• 11 years ago

Why use "filetype" and not "ext"? The results are identical.

function_seven• 11 years ago

Then why use "ext" and not "filetype"?

monochromatic• 11 years ago

If the results are identical, then who cares? If it's just a matter of saving five keystrokes, I wonder if your 60-keystroke comment was a good use of time...

wut42• 11 years ago

it may have more results with the filetype, some server generated PDFs doesn't always have the extension.

userbinator• 11 years ago

Because the submitter may not have known about "ext"?

(Thanks, now I do.)

titfn• 11 years ago

probably because ext is easier to use and Google will therefore probably discontinue it shortly...

peterwwillis• 11 years ago

What's especially crazy about these are that so many have been cached by Google. Anyone can read these docs and only Google would ever have a record.

rohan404• 11 years ago

Isn't this one supposed to be public information anyways?: http://www.oema.us/files/FBI-OFFICES.pdf

pdxandi• 11 years ago

Hmm, it doesn't appear so. The header says, "NOT FOR PUBLIC RELEASE - PUBLIC SAFETY AGENCY USE ONLY"

feld• 11 years ago

Tennessee execution procedures? lovely

PeterWhittaker• 11 years ago

Much more interesting if you limit the search by time.

Less than a month old? A single screenful, mostly Australian.

mindcrime• 11 years ago

You can find neat stuff by adding site: qualifiers as well, like:

https://www.google.com/search?q=not+for+public+release+filet...

https://www.google.com/search?q=top+secret+filetype:pdf+site...

and

https://www.google.com/search?q="five+eyes"+filetype:pdf+sit...

etc.

snehesht• 11 years ago

Some times people are ignorant but sometimes they are clever.

pakled_engineer• 11 years ago

"for official use only" or "U//FOUO" brings up interesting results, the pdf "U//FOUO Sovereign citizens extremist ideology" by the FBI was a good read so were all the Interpol recent internal reports about all their weapons that have been "misplaced" or stolen.

ChuckMcM• 11 years ago

Priceless: https://www.amherst.edu/system/files/media/1349/Finalproj_s1...

Kind of makes me want to take Geology there, sounds like a fun place.

ikeboy• 11 years ago

Not quite the same, but the results for https://www.google.com/search?q=Hyperlinking+to+the+Site+fro... are interesting.

dan-silver• 11 years ago

Combine with site:[url] for smaller scope. example: "not for public release" filetype:pdf site:house.gov

Mahn• 11 years ago

Offtopic but am I the only one seeing this? http://i.imgur.com/3pnOXot.png I thought google moved away from that black bar.

strictnein• 11 years ago

I'm seeing it occasionally.

Thasc• 11 years ago

I seem to remember that they were using it to punish out-of-date browsers. But since I'm getting it with up-to-date Chrome, it doesn't seem to be very well targeted.

ryanlol2• 11 years ago

A/B testing.

shanemhansen• 11 years ago

This one was quite sad. The suicide of an inmate: http://www.drc.ohio.gov/public/after_action_castroA643371.pd...

_tjry3• 11 years ago

Uh. Unless I'm mistaken, that particular inmate pleaded guilty and was convicted of 937 various counts raised against him, including murder and rape. He kidnapped three women (in 2002, 2003 and 2004) and kept them imprisoned in his basement for nearly 11 years during which time he did horrible, unspeakable things to them.

deadalus• 11 years ago

morality is subjective

rusbus• 11 years ago

I wonder if those are the sort of links that can leave you on the wrong side of the Computer Fraud and Abuse act...

jdavis703• 11 years ago

IANAL, but typically CFAA violations revolve around crafting special URLs, as in a forced browsing attack. Simply following a URL, is AFAIK not (yet) a crime.

ryanlol2• 11 years ago

Intent is key, not the technical approach. If you're intentionally trying to access files you clearly aren't intended to be accessing, you're probably guilty of unauthorized access.

hellbanner• 11 years ago

Ironically, a lot of the top results now are about this phenomenon. Reminds me of that page that deleted it self when indexed

Google PDF Search: “not for public release”

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