Picking Up the Pieces

ravenousbugblatter writes "The New York Times online ran an article yesterday titled Picking up the pieces that talks about new technology that can recover information from shredded documents. Not only can companies scan strip-shredded paper and recover the information, they can do the same with cross-shredded paper. It comes at a price though - one company charges $8,000-$10,000 to "reconstruct" the information in a cubic foot of cross-shredded material. How's it done? The shreds are glued onto a piece of paper and then scanned. Software then looks for matches (in one case using the pattern of ink at the edges of the pieces) and suggests possible combinations to the operator that can be accepted or rejected."

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Re:Shredding is for wimps.

[shokk]

splatterpants writes "The New York Times online ran an article yesterday titled Picking up the Lumps that talks about new technology that can recover information from shredded documents that have been eaten in milk. Not only can companies scan strip-shredded paper and recover the information, they can do the same with cross-shredded paper from people with anything from diarrhea to Wheaties bricks. It comes at a price though - one company charges $80,000-$100,000 to "reconstruct" the information in a cubic foot of cross-shredded "fecal material". How's it done? The lumps are collected from the sewage and then glued onto a piece of paper and then scanned. Software then looks for matches (in one case using the pattern of ink at the edges of the clumps) and suggests possible combinations to the operator that can be accepted or rejected. Says scanner operator Mike Crapper, 'The worse thing about the job is getting a hole in the environmental suit. Who can eat lunch after somethinglike that?'"