Do you want to be able to search the Web as well as the average spy?

The National Security Agency (News - Alert) (NSA) may be able to help. One of America’s top spy agencies was forced to release an internal guide to searching the Web following a Freedom of Information request made by MuckRock.

The result is a 643-page manual entitled “Untangling the Web: A Guide to Internet Research.”

There are many useful tips in the manual, and it was apparently written by outside consultants for the NSA.

The manual also claims the methods recommended involve “publicly available search engines to access publicly available information that almost certainly was not intended for public distribution.”

In its review of the manual, Wired has said that “the most interesting” section related to “Google Hacking.”

Much of the news media also appeared to be most interested in a warning from the authors about Microsoft (News - Alert) files. "It is critical that you handle all Microsoft file types on the Internet with extreme care. Never open a Microsoft file type on the Internet. Instead, use one of the techniques described here," the report said.

While much of the report is a how-to guide on searching the Internet, there is also some analysis of the Internet’s impact on society.

“The Internet is changing, or at the very least touching people’s lives in ways we have not imagined,” the report concluded. “No one is out of reach of this powerful, invasive technology.”

Ironically, the NSA has been among the strongest advocates for tougher cyber-security precautions. Last year, NSA head Gen. Keith Alexander warned there had been a 17-fold jump in the number of computer attacks on American infrastructure between 2009 and 2011.

Alexander said the attacks – which are increasingly aimed at “critical infrastructure” – took place by criminal gangs, hackers and other nations against such infrastructure as cell phone networks, computer networks, electricity grids and water supplies, TMCnet added.