when i was doing research last week on shredding, i came across this "hot topic"--unshredding. wikipedia has a few paragraphs dedicated to this subject (all super interesting). the part i found the most useful is when they talk about how to properly feed the paper into the shredder to avoid unshredding by criminals. "when the documents are fed to the shredder in a way that the lines of text are not perpendicular to the shredder blades, portions of text may remain legible on the stripes." most homes are probably operating with a standard shredder that cuts paper into 34 long strips. even with the other standard home model (a confetti shredder), which cuts paper into 300 pieces, the article mentions that you're paperwork is still capable of being unshredded. the safest type of shredder to prevent this is called a micro cut shredder. this bad boy cuts one piece of paper into 3770 bits--try and piece that back together!
I can only imagine how much a micro cut shredder would cost. Wow!
ReplyDeleteyeah--it all depends. i found some in the $125-$150 price range going up to $700. the reality is that the confetti shredder is 99% fine for household use (but business owners, medical offices, etc would probably want to invest in the micro cut shredder).
ReplyDeletewow, I cannot believe that we have to even be careful in our shredding...maybe we need to educate the criminals to give up their criminal ways a bit!
ReplyDeleteHave a great Tuesday!
what about a cross-shredder... would that work? since it shreds both horizontally and vertically. seems like it would be difficult to unshred.
ReplyDeleteI got a Staples branded microcut shredder and it wasn't THAT much compared to the sanity it offers. Right now they have one for $199 which is not TOO bad. I listened to Frank Abagnale of "Catch Me If You Can" fame and after hearing what criminals can do, I was scared. The are computer programs that can scan all the pieces and put them together like a puzzle. To be safe, if you have a strip shredder, mix up all the shreds before you toss them. The logic that makes putting the scans back together is that they are pretty much in order in the trash so when they are reassembled, it's pretty obvious which strips mate with which other strips. With strip shredders an amateur can put a page back together in about 1 hour, several hours for cross-cut shredders and nearly impossible with microcut shredders.
ReplyDeleteSo maybe soaking your papers in water overnight, or until the ink dissolves is not such a bad idea after all!
ReplyDelete@ teresa--that's so funny--i was actually thinking of your idea when i was writing this post. if you go to the wikipedia entry, they actually talk about how the us government has stepped up their shredding processes to include pulverizing and pulping:)
ReplyDelete