> No. A few thousand other bags contained paper that had been shredded into incredibly small pieces in 1990. This material was destroyed back in 1991 after inspection by the Stasi Records Office. Hence, there is no longer any paper shredded by the Stasi at today's archive .
Shredder chads from the 90s can definitely be reconstructed. This is why the NSA has gradually decreased the maximum size permissible for chads. If they'd held on to that material they could be recovered today.
Vernor Vinge's Rainbows End includes this as a minor early plot point; libraries being fed into giant shredders that digitize and stitch together the scraps on their way to the incinerator.
Wow, fascinating! I hope I’m not the only OCR-minded soul on here that immediately started thinking of pipelines for this one could assemble from all our new DL-enabled toys… it’s a shame that “some American kid” probably doesn’t meet their contracting requirements.
One thing that kinda baffles is that it sounds like the snippets (I bet that German word is fun) haven’t been scanned(/photographed…?) yet. No matter who they contract with, wouldn’t that necessarily be step #1? Or is the scanning the part that needs contracting, and the “e-Puzzler” name was just a lil melodramatic?
For one thing, I feel like it’ll be wildly helpful that they’re on a variety of papers, not challenging like they imply. Once that and bag index have narrowed down neighbor candidates, you’ve got rules and glyphs to go off of, much less recognizable form layouts. It feels like the Vesuvius scrolls but actually tractable…
That’s an odd price. Not knowing what a “bag” means, I think 13-gallon (“kitchen”) or larger lawn clippings bag is possible.
I wouldn’t for €100 sign up to scan even an office wastebasket (6-8 gallon) bag of torn-up paper. Make it €2000 for that quantity, and we’ll start talking.
I worked in the Pentagon from 1989-1995. I handled “burn bags”, among the other classified stuff I did.
I can’t speak for what their bags are like, but ours were basically large, thick, grocery-size paper bags without handles. Thick enough that they most likely wouldn’t tear, even if they were full and mid-handled somewhat. You rolled down the top and stapled them shut.
But we didn’t shred our documents first. We just put in whole sheets and reams of paper, and we left it up to them to shred first and then burn. But then, that was 1989.
> Since the project began in 2007, based on contractual obligations, around 6.5 million euros have been paid to Fraunhofer IPK or the Fraunhofer Gesellschaft
> In the fall of 2013, Fraunhofer IPK was able to demonstrate that the software developed by its scientists, the so-called e-Puzzler, works in principle. However, the process proved unsuited for mass production. Overall, the project never achieved the envisaged automated reconstruction rate of at least 80 per cent.
What is up with this cynical comment? They tried to solve the problem and it turned out to be not feasible. Just because they failed doesn't mean trying was bad. I suggest learning about the concept of "expected value".
Don't neglect the possibility that there are people in power who don't want these records to come to light. Either because of direct implication of people or their families in the stasi atrocities, "national embarrassment", etc
> Could shredded paper be reconstructed?
> No. A few thousand other bags contained paper that had been shredded into incredibly small pieces in 1990. This material was destroyed back in 1991 after inspection by the Stasi Records Office. Hence, there is no longer any paper shredded by the Stasi at today's archive .
I find the assertion that it was “impossible” to reassemble shredded documents… disappointing - as they seem to be confusing “very difficult with current tools” with “no way of doing it, ever”
I mean, they made sure it was true by burning them all after they decided it could never be done. Phenomenally short-sighted - unless of course there was a reason they wanted those particular documents to never be read.
> unless of course there was a reason they wanted those particular documents to never be read.
Why would officers from West Germany not want East German documents to be read? That's nonsense. Then they would have destroyed everything, not just th shreddered documents.
> Could shredded paper be reconstructed?
> No. A few thousand other bags contained paper that had been shredded into incredibly small pieces in 1990. This material was destroyed back in 1991 after inspection by the Stasi Records Office. Hence, there is no longer any paper shredded by the Stasi at today's archive .
Shredder chads from the 90s can definitely be reconstructed. This is why the NSA has gradually decreased the maximum size permissible for chads. If they'd held on to that material they could be recovered today.
Vernor Vinge's Rainbows End includes this as a minor early plot point; libraries being fed into giant shredders that digitize and stitch together the scraps on their way to the incinerator.
Just scan all the snippets and upload them. Someone will figure it out.
Scanning them is likely part of the problem.
Wow, fascinating! I hope I’m not the only OCR-minded soul on here that immediately started thinking of pipelines for this one could assemble from all our new DL-enabled toys… it’s a shame that “some American kid” probably doesn’t meet their contracting requirements.
One thing that kinda baffles is that it sounds like the snippets (I bet that German word is fun) haven’t been scanned(/photographed…?) yet. No matter who they contract with, wouldn’t that necessarily be step #1? Or is the scanning the part that needs contracting, and the “e-Puzzler” name was just a lil melodramatic?
For one thing, I feel like it’ll be wildly helpful that they’re on a variety of papers, not challenging like they imply. Once that and bag index have narrowed down neighbor candidates, you’ve got rules and glyphs to go off of, much less recognizable form layouts. It feels like the Vesuvius scrolls but actually tractable…
Scanning 16,000 bags of tangled snippets does not sound that trivial to me. Surely that’s a significant problem and cost on its own.
Let’s say it costs €100 to digitize each bag, that’s only €1,600,000 significantly less than what has already been spent.
That’s an odd price. Not knowing what a “bag” means, I think 13-gallon (“kitchen”) or larger lawn clippings bag is possible.
I wouldn’t for €100 sign up to scan even an office wastebasket (6-8 gallon) bag of torn-up paper. Make it €2000 for that quantity, and we’ll start talking.
I worked in the Pentagon from 1989-1995. I handled “burn bags”, among the other classified stuff I did.
I can’t speak for what their bags are like, but ours were basically large, thick, grocery-size paper bags without handles. Thick enough that they most likely wouldn’t tear, even if they were full and mid-handled somewhat. You rolled down the top and stapled them shut.
Like these: https://live.staticflickr.com/4129/4987369106_ab71780b90_z.j...
But we didn’t shred our documents first. We just put in whole sheets and reams of paper, and we left it up to them to shred first and then burn. But then, that was 1989.
“Each bag contains between 2,500 and 3,500 fragments of torn-up pages.”
Agreed, €100 seems low to process a single bag.
> Or is the scanning the part that needs contracting
I assume both scanning and reconstruction would be part of the same contract.
> Since the project began in 2007, based on contractual obligations, around 6.5 million euros have been paid to Fraunhofer IPK or the Fraunhofer Gesellschaft
> In the fall of 2013, Fraunhofer IPK was able to demonstrate that the software developed by its scientists, the so-called e-Puzzler, works in principle. However, the process proved unsuited for mass production. Overall, the project never achieved the envisaged automated reconstruction rate of at least 80 per cent.
Well, that was tax-payer's money well spent!
haha right? let's never spend any tax-payer money on anything again! did you know the soviets used a pencil? ha!
This but unironically. Taking money from everybody under the threat of violence and then wasting it should be a hangable offence.
What is up with this cynical comment? They tried to solve the problem and it turned out to be not feasible. Just because they failed doesn't mean trying was bad. I suggest learning about the concept of "expected value".
They’ve spent six million euro and counting on this and they are still paying people to manually reassemble them.
Talk about rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.
There's nothing technical to discuss; where's the meat? This 2012 article at least has pictures: https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-19344978
I speculate the problem is not technical but financial or political; the ML to do this was up to the task at least ten years ago.
Don't neglect the possibility that there are people in power who don't want these records to come to light. Either because of direct implication of people or their families in the stasi atrocities, "national embarrassment", etc
This was a DARPA challenge back in 2012 too. Shredded documents seem more of a challenge than torn.
https://cacm.acm.org/news/darpa-shredder-challenge-solved/
I find the assertion that it was “impossible” to reassemble shredded documents… disappointing - as they seem to be confusing “very difficult with current tools” with “no way of doing it, ever”
I mean, they made sure it was true by burning them all after they decided it could never be done. Phenomenally short-sighted - unless of course there was a reason they wanted those particular documents to never be read.
> unless of course there was a reason they wanted those particular documents to never be read.
Why would officers from West Germany not want East German documents to be read? That's nonsense. Then they would have destroyed everything, not just th shreddered documents.
"We simply rehired all Nazi's and Stasi's but here there is a sophisticated technical problem to keep you busy."