[keepamovin]

In the early days of the web you could do a search on google like

  path:/etc/passwd

Sometimes there were even shadow passwd files with the hashes exposed on the web. Crazy days.

[katemaster009]

I remember seeing examples like this in security courses.

It was always surprising how many servers accidentally exposed sensitive files.

[keepamovin]

Yes. Apache misconfigurations were a big one iirc. There were also basic auth files, databases and probably classified/proprietary information.

Similar to how the telephone network used to have all kinds of unsecured entry points that people explored, leading to business phone systems, strange modems, and even international “trunk” lines and operator capabilities.

It was a wild frontier

[AndReics]

i thought it was still possible!

Luckily security has come a long way, but as shown by the project of OP, we are not quite there yet.