Shredded Secret Police Files Being Reassembled

An anonymous reader writes "German researchers at the Frauenhofer Institute said Wednesday that they were launching an attempt to reassemble millions of shredded East German secret police files using complicated computerized algorithms. The files were shredded as the Berlin Wall fell in 1989 and it became clear that the East German regime was finished. Panicking officials of the Stasi secret police attempted to destroy the vast volumes of material they had kept on everyone from their own citizens to foreign leaders."

Trust?

[JackieBrown]

"Many important documents are slumbering in these sacks"

And they will just re-shred the private, personal stuff, correct?

shredding is so last week....

[Original Replica]

why didn't they also burn them if they really wanted them gone? C'mon they could make a person vanish, but they can manage to successfully destroy paper?

Why are these documents important?

[Anonymous Coward]

Is it just curiosity, or is there some real practical reason for doing this?

Re:Trust?

[shaitand]

You know what else I love? I love the way they are the vile communist evil secret east german police who spied on their citizens and foreign leaders. Yet our own wonderful friendly giant FBI keeps every scrap of information it gathers on private citizens and the CIA does the same for foreign leaders. Hell, our own secret police (the NSA) probably does both.

After they finished with that job ...

[Anonymous Coward]

... we have a shit load of bags marked "Bush Administration" that are in need of their talents. =)

Re:Trust?

[timmarhy]

because you know, the american agencies don't torture or abduct people... oh wait a sec! they do!

Re:Trust?

[shaitand]

According to whom? The NSA isn't supposed to do police stuff. The last time I heard of the NSA publicly commenting on what they do or don't do was when a congressional oversight committee was convened to investigate whether they have been wiretapping citizens without warrants. The NSA's only comment to the oversight committee was that subjecting itself to oversight would risk national security. They didn't turn over paperwork or show up for the hearing.

I don't recall there being much media coverage after that, it just sort of went away.

Intense political pressure?

[Anonymous McCartneyf]

So, who is pressuring the Fraunhofner(sp?) Institute not to do this? Did Germany's Communist Party gain seats last election?

Re:Trust?

[Anonymous Coward]

If I were dead, I may not care about my personal information that would have affected me if I were alive. Though my personal information that may affect my family and friends who are still alive is another thing.

Re:Trust?

[shaitand]

'Oh no, we'll be invading the privacy of some dead/near-death OAPs!'

We are talking about East Germany, not Nazi Germany. There could be dirt on people in their twenties in those files.

Re:Intense political pressure?

[macshit]

So, who is pressuring the Fraunhofner(sp?) Institute not to do this? Did Germany's Communist Party gain seats last election?

Er, what do you think happened to people who were part of the former power structure in east germany?

Based on what I've heard from someone who lived in east germany at the time, there was a mad scramble to gain advantage when east germany fell, and despite some sort of attempts to hold the "bad guys" to account, there were many cases of things not quite working they way they were supposed to -- e.g. people successfully hiding their past, and even worse, people cynically using the system to gain personal advantage (e.g., denounce your [innocent] neighbor, grab his property in the confusion).

As a result, there are almost certainly many people in positions of power in germany today who would rather like to keep details of the east german past hidden.

The same files in different hands

[chicago_scott]

I hope that the people reassembling the files don't misuse them in the same way that the East German government did. Wouldn't it be better to permanently destroy the files since they shouldn't have been compiled by the East German government in the first place?

Re:Jigsaw Puzzle

[urbanradar]

Maybe someone could create an online jigsaw puzzle game, and let the internet people reassemble those docs.

Yes, because bored people surfing could re-assemble documents much faster and more reliably than computers ever will. And let's not forget that the entire internet should be able to freely read detailed documentation on the private lives of ordinary people, many of which are still alive today. Perfect idea!

Re:Trust?

[Shihar]

That's because you're only a "bad guy" if you lose.

No you are the "bad guy" if you have to build a fucking wall around your nation then station it with mines and machine guns to keep people in it. Last time I checked, western Europe and the US never had to build a fucking wall to keep people from fleeing their nation in terror.

Seriously people. Get a fucking grip and get over the moral relativism. It was bad. East Germany didn't throw build the Berlin wall for shits and giggles. People were not dancing in the street when it come down (on both sides) because it was the sad end of a merry social experience.

The guys they kept tabs on? ;-)

[PaulBu]

besides former Stasi collabporators/agents/etc. (as pointed out by several posts above mine), I bet (if East Germany intelligence was as good as it was supposed to be) there might be some Western leaders as well who would not like their secret files to be made public...

Paul B.

Re:Intense political pressure?

[demon driver]

The old East German SED, became the PDS after re-unification

Not quite - the PDS emerged out of the SED after most of the SED's hard core leaders were thrown out or went by themselves. And yes, the PDS/WASG did gain seats last election - but apart from an early statutory phrase there's not a whiff of communism left in it. They've actually decided to declare commitment to private enterprise and market economy, and politically their positions are more like what the then moderately left-wing Social Democrats, one of Germany's two big mainstream parties, used to represent two decades ago and earlier.

Re:Stasi files

[Nazlfrag]

Reflect on the fact that the Stasi were using paper records, then look at our situation. We are under much heavier surveillance than East Germany was 20 years ago, it's just that we don't need every 4th person to be an informer. IMHO that's far more dangerous.

Re:Stasi files

[KnuthKonrad]

No "might" necessary, there are Western leaders and others who don't want their Stasi (secret police) files public. Former West German chancellor Kohl successfully sued to keep his files under wraps. That's for the simple reason that those files often contain the most private details of what the Stasi had assembled using bugs and other means.

I find it interesting in that case that Kohl at that time was involved in a big fund raising scandal [wikipedia.org]. As of today, he refused to name the donators of the money

I also find it interesting that in this cases privacy is an issue, whereas otherwise (EU data retention [wikipedia.org], to name an example) privacy only protects "teh ebil terorrists"

Re:Trust?

[bgarcia]

We are talking about East Germany, not Nazi Germany. There could be dirt on people in their twenties in those files.

Considering East Germany was annexed in 1990, you're talking about secret files on three-year-olds.

"Today, little Horst pooped in his pants, and didn't tell anybody."

ooooohhhhh, *complicated* algorithms

[icepick72]

using complicated computerized algorithms.

But are the computer algorithms also "pretty"?
Are they heavily "optimized"?
Or "lazy heuristic" algorithms?
Maybe they're inauspicious and pink

Re:Trust?

[autophile]

We are talking about East Germany, not Nazi Germany. There could be dirt on people in their twenties in those files.

(BTW, reunification occurred in 1990).

Researcher 1: We've put together the first document!
Researcher 2: Hmm, it's about some kid named Hans, age 4.
Researcher 1: Wow, Hans ran an underground printing press urging... what does this say?
Researcher 2: ...urging a more Western approach towards toilet training?
Researcher 1: And he demanded access to Barney.
Researcher 2: That would send anyone to the Gulag!
Researcher 1: Ha ha ha!
Researcher 2: Ha ha ha!

--Rob