DARPA: Reconstruct Shredded Docs, Win $50K USD

ematic writes with a link to an interesting competition from DARPA: "The ability to reconstruct shredded documents will potentially yield information that may save lives or offer critical information about an adversary's plans. Currently, this process is much too slow and too labor-intensive, particularly if the documents are handwritten. We are looking to the Shredder Challenge to generate some leap-ahead thinking in this area. The Shredder Challenge is composed of five separate problems. The overall prize awarded depends on the number and difficulty of problems solved."

Comments

Puny prize

[afidel]

Someone with a unique way of reconstructing shredded documents can probably earn more than that in one afternoon of dumpster diving.

Re:Puny prize

[lgw]

Well, the normal approach is to scan all the remains, calculate a checksum for the pattern along each edge, then match the checksums to reconstruct the docuement. Without crosscut shredding this is very fast and effective.

As I understand it, the government now shreds anything important (paper, hard drive, etc) down to less than 1mm on a side, so it's not such an easy problem these days - veyr many disctint pieces, and not much distinctness along the edges.

Re:I think they know how to do this very well alre

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know, I've been hitting the shredded documents with a wrench for the last 10 minutes, it doesn't seem to be working.

Shred?

[MarkGriz]

Any adversary that shreds rather than incinerates critical information they don't want recovered isn't much of an adversary.

Re:Shred?

[TheRaven64]

I did some work for a company that stores legal documents a few years ago. When things are ready for disposal, they are shredded loaded into a locked container. This container is then driven away and not unlocked until it arrives at its destination. Once there, it's emptied into a swimming pool filled with bleach. It is then removed from there and recycled. By the time it comes out of the bleach, it is small fragments of white fluff.

Re:Shred?

[halivar]

Bundle the documents up in a hardcover, put a picture of Snooki on the front and give her writing credit. Distribute to any bookstore in the country that will take it. The secret will be safe forever.

Cheapasses

[RobinEggs]

You gotta love when someone offers a $50,000 prize for an improvement that would save them millions of dollars in labor, not to mention the value of files reconstructed that might have been ignored before it became so much easier to do.

A million dollars for improving the movie recommendations on Netflix, and $50,000 for a massive intelligence breakthrough?

Way to go, Pentagon. Way to prove that even with a defense budget of $649 billion dollars you can still be a total cheapass.

Re:Cheapasses

[pclminion]

Well, they are spending the taxpayer dollar. Technically they have an obligation to do it as cheaply as possible.

In other words, the government is obligated to obtain the shittiest services possible? Speak for yourself. Me, as a taxpayer? Fuck that. If you can't afford to do things the right way with the taxes you currently collect, you either need to cancel a lot of spending or raise taxes. "Buy crappy stuff at a discount" is not an option I find acceptable.

Re:I think they know how to do this very well alre

[Verdatum]

I get this all the time. You're probably using imperial; try switching to metric.

That's a little... cheap

[Leebert]

I think you'd be better off, if you were successful, to simply commercialize it. $50,000? That's like the first year's support contract on the software you'll sell them for $300,000 per seat. And since it's "enterprise" software, it doesn't even have to actually work particularly well. That's why you sell the support contracts.

Documents From the U.S. Espionage Den

[alanw]

shredderchallenge seems to be Slashdotted, so apologies if this is a dup.

During the Iran Hostage Crisis teams of carpet weavers were recruited to piece together shredded documents. They were then published in 1982 in 54 volumes under the title "Documents From the U.S. Espionage Den".

Some folks in Germany have done this already . . .

[PolygamousRanchKid]

For piecing together shredded East Germany Secret Police (Stasi) documents: http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1983287,00.html

Maybe DARPA needs to take a trip to Germany . . .

Re:Dumbasses

[tomhudson]

Anonymous Coward doesn't need a low UID, because Anonymous Coward doesn't even have one.

FYI: A.C's user id is 666