Thursday
I thought this is one of the cases where technology is nothing but good news...
German researchers 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.Some 16,250 sacks containing pieces of 45 million shredded documents were found and confiscated after the reunification of Germany in 1990. Reconstruction work began 12 years ago but 24 people have been able to reassemble the contents of only 323 sacks.
Using algorithms developed 15 years ago to help decipher barely legible lists of Nazi concentration camp victims, each individual strip of the shredded Stasi files will be scanned on both sides. The data then will be fed into the computer for interpretation using color recognition; texture analysis; shape and pattern recognition; machine and handwriting analysis and the recognition of forged official stamps
Until I read the final paragraph.
Putting the machine-shredded documents together requires analysis of the script on the surface of the fragments. The institute has already had success putting together similarly destroyed documents for Germany's tax authorities.
But then, it is never the technology that is at fault, but people and the uses they put it to...
No matter, I am very pleased to hear that there is some work somewhere being done on the past of former communist countries.
via Dropsafe
You just had to spoil it, didn't you:-) Still, I am awed by the technology, and by the truly worthy causes it is applied to. Not all is doom and gloom.
Posted by Alisa at May 10, 2007 10:01 PM
Shred, then burn. I know I'm paranoid but that doesn't mean those tax people aren't tryimg to get me.
Posted by 6th Column at May 10, 2007 10:07 PM
But then, it is never the technology that is at fault, but people and the uses they put it to...
This is true indeed, and was demonstrated last night by a propaganda programme on television about CCTV cameras.
Posted by knirirr at May 10, 2007 10:55 PM
Hence the invention of the cross-cut shredder. Good luck scanning the output of one of them.
Posted by Tim Newman at May 11, 2007 12:06 AM
And why exactly does the German government want Stasi secret files on East German citizens? Wasn't their privacy compromised enough already not to have to go through the indignity of being read by a computer expert showing off how good his technology is?
Posted by Brendan Halfweeg at May 11, 2007 07:33 AM
To Brendan Halfweeg - A lot of East German citizens want(ed) the files reconstructed so they are able to trace the fate of relatives or friends who went 'missing' at the hands of the Stasi. (There is an interview with one such person in Anna Funder's 'Stasiland').
Posted by T Fisher at May 11, 2007 10:30 AM
Neat. I'm reading Vinge's Rainbows End at the moment, and part of the story deals with a digitization of the UC-San Diego library that involves dropping the books in tree shredders and then using this technique to reconstruct the resulting "chads," cross-referenced with other mulched libraries in order to digitize pre-internet literature.
Posted by Bobbo at May 11, 2007 03:52 PM
They might be able to piece together the Mayan clay tablets smashed by the Jesuits, enabling us to read them.
Posted by MikeG at May 11, 2007 07:10 PM
Document shreddees might like to invest in a shredder that feeds the strips into a hamster cage :-)
http://www.tomballhatchet.com/hamstershredder.html
Posted by Morty at May 12, 2007 12:33 AM
A lot of East German citizens want(ed) the files reconstructed so they are able to trace the fate of relatives or friends who went 'missing' at the hands of the Stasi.
How do you identify the boxes of shred papers of people who consent to have their files reconstructed from those who would prefer to maintain their privacy?
Posted by Brendan Halfweeg at May 14, 2007 11:03 AM
