The use of the Google search engine for accessing private information on the World Wide Web

Abstract

This paper discusses how the search engine Google can be used to access private information on the World Wide Web. Google hacking, the use of search operators of the Google search engine enables hackers to perform complicated queries to retrieve information located at misconfigured web-servers. In this paper, private information that might be sensitive is classified and Google hacking techniques that can be used to retrieve this information is investigated. It is found out that Google hacking enables access to private information even if they are not published publicly and kept unlinked. © 2008 Atilla Elçi.