THE ART OF RECONSTRUCTING SHREDDED DOCUMENTS WORKING WITH PAPER SPAGHETTI

Submitted By: CJ Bronstrup

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The art of reconstructing shredded documents can be great for fun for the

whole family if you can convince them it is a new jigsaw puzzle you just

bought. Otherwise, you may be in for a long night. The first step to

reassembling shredded documents is to sort the shreds prior to paste-up.

Look for differences in the angle of each shred, what text each document

contained, which color its paper was, and which weight, and the

identification of individual documents by their shreds is fairly simple,

albeit tedious. Once you have the shreds properly classified, only a few

pages should exist in each little group of sorted shreds. These will submit

easily to careful paste-up and result of reconstruction, since only one or

two hundred shreds exist in a three page group of average size. (This

article assumes you are not dealing with cross-cut, chipped documents, or

ashes; but with strip-cut pieces which are the most popular.) A three page

group only takes an hour or two to completely reassemble once you get the

hang of it. The key to paste-up is proper and systematic comparison of each

shred against as many others as seem to fit. This has to be done

systematically in order to avoid re-comparisons, and to identify patterns in

the reassembled portions.

Place the sorted shreds to one side, and place the first shred on the

paste-up board, anywhere. (I like to use the clear removable tape available

at most office supply stores.) Next, pick up the second shred, and place it

alongside the first in the same orientation. Compare it against one side,

then the other. If it matches, tape it down, and if it does not, tape it

down a little farther away, perhaps an inch or so away, parallel to the

first. Repeat the procedure until you have a partially completed page.

Sometimes, it is not necessary to reassemble the entire page unless you need

a copy. Often, I am only after information or leads. At this point it is a

lot like playing Wheel of Fortune. Once you guess the contents, you may

decide to scrap that page. (Honey, are you positive you don't want to play

this exciting new board game?) When you compare the shreds in this manner,

you are limiting the number of comparisons to a fixed, predictable number.

If you run out of room to paste down new strips, grab a fresh paste-up board

and keep it handy or prepare to recycle the "no-match" pile which will

develop opposite the "raw" pile.

Inspect the reassembled document strips as they grow. Read what develops to

guess which shreds match the open edges. The widening strips are compared as

if they were shreds, and joined whenever possible. If two matching strips

coexist on a paste-up board but remain unjoined, they retard your further

comparisons since two of the available edges will not match any free shreds.

That also wastes time.

When a few documents have been completed, transparent packing tape can be

used to fuse them, or care can be taken to tape only the tops and bottoms of

each document with tape. That way, when the shreds are cut free of their

tape, they are just a bunch of loose shreds again, ready for disposal. Clear

contact paper has been used but it can ruin documents whose shreds will not

lay flat anymore due to dampness or lengthy storage. Tape is easier to

control than contact paper, but both media will pull shreds up with their

static electric charges unless you ground them. Fully taped documents are

much easier to store and preserve, if you need the original. If you want the

data, make photocopies. Press completed documents between plastic (overhead

projector) sheets to keep the copier's glass clean and to align the shreds.

One thing to remember is that businesses and governments use forms whenever

possible to save cost. These can be roadmaps to incomplete reassembled

documents. Thus, it can be invaluable to have a blank form prior to

beginning a project. If need be, clear plastic can be traced over a

completed form to outline just the form boxes. When laid over the partial

document, these give a clue to what information is missing, and what shred

patterns to look for to complete it. (What a great mystery game, let's

invite the neighbors over for coffee and paste-up!)

Speaking of coffee, sometimes you'll have to deal with coffee grounds mixed

in with the strips as well as used cat litter, and even lunch waste mixed

with the shreds. You may run into intentional defenses by the super

cautious. One method that is common; they simply increase the shred volume

to include everything available, and overflow the trash bin. Burning is

best, but is not legal in many urban areas. Even when it's legal, it's

expensive; it requires safety equipment and personal supervision during

every moment of the burn. The military, however, prefers fire and flushing

to any alternative. When it absolutely, positively has to disappear

overnight, fire and water should be your choice, too. Cross cut shredders

are the next best defense.

Anyone who needs the data would have to give up their job or their social

life (or hire you) to have time for reconstruction! Why not let that

expensive computer equipment justify it's expense once more? Feeding the

data in is now easy with a flatbed scanner, and can be easier if you have

thin sheets of clear, stiff plastic to sandwich/mash the shreds down. A

programmer would then want to compare the edges of the images in the

computer's memory. The basic idea is to turn the edge of a shred image into

a "word" according to its pixel pattern. This "word" would then be sorted

with the other "words" and the results would indicate which images are

matches. Only a small portion of each edge would be compared, since a close

match in one area is a good indicator for the whole. A sample size might be

three inches in length, starting one inch down from the top of each shred.

Reconstruction would be accomplished by drawing in the images in their

relative positions and printing the result, or passing the image to an OCR

routine for translation into completed ASCII text pages. This too can be

very time consuming, but if many of the documents are in the same format, it

will become much faster on the second and following documents than the

first. Are you sure junior won't believe this is a new game?

 

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CJ Bronstrup

Phone:(252) 449-2903 Fax: (252) 449-2904

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