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."

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.

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.

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 [time.com]

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

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.