Paper Unshredder
May 14, 2007 Innovation, News
If you are an ardent follower of CSI, you would have probably seen CSI agents trying to put the shredded pieces of paper together manually in search of clues. It seemed as an arduous task with the different permutations and combinations that were needed to reverse the process of paper shredding. German scientists have developed a computer program that will undo the process of paper shredding. These researchers are trying to piece together 45 million pages of secret police files ripped into 600 million pieces. These files were torn up by hand by the agents of East Germany’s Secret Service (Stasi) 18 years ago.
The pieces of torn documents are scanned on both sides, and the digital images are then analysed by a cluster of 16 computers for 25 features, including colour, shape, texture, handwriting and typeface.
The technology seems uncomplicated with mixing and matching of different patterns. But, who will undertake the task of scanning a billion pieces of paper? Maybe they are missing out on the contusions caused on the edges while being torn apart. Torn paper edges will have a specific pattern when shredded manually which could be exploited while bringing them together.
If this paper unshredder becomes successful, the industry should start looking for better choices of disposing confidential documents like burning or crushing.
via Crunch Gear
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