Call centre for whistleblowers

Dan Atkinson and Jenny Little, Financial Mail

1 July 2007, 11:31am

•• Private investigation firms are sending shredded documents to Thailand and India to be reconstructed. The Navigant consultancy told Financial Mail that provided the documents had not been through a cross-cutting machine, it should be possible to stitch them back together.

'It is incredibly labour intensive, and even in a developing country it costs £5,000 per bin liner,' said the source. 'Including transport there and back, a bin liner takes a week to be sorted out.'

Edited July 1, 200719 yr by Mid

So whats the point?

fact that it's possible ......................

Its always been possible if you REALLY want to know what has been shreded !

During the Iraq war Saddam used carpet makers to piece together shredded documents!

Its always been possible if you REALLY want to know what has been shreded !

grant you that ,

this is the first practical example I've seen ,

permutations must be horrendous .....................

Its always been possible if you REALLY want to know what has been shreded !

grant you that ,

this is the first practical example I've seen ,

permutations must be horrendous .....................

Just a jigsaw puzzle really.

India seems reasonable but I'm not sure they'll find the English language skills here.

Always use a cross cut shredder

Always use a cross cut shredder

or just burn your unwanted documents

Probably not that difficult when you think about it.

The technology has actually been around for a few years. A hand scanner to read the strips, and a software program to pick out probable matches.

It wasn't too long ago (couple of months maybe) that I read an article about a guy who was using a similar technique to reconstruct old (ancient) documents.

(Day to day stuff we shred. Secure materials are shredded, then burnt.)

This was being done in the 80's. When i was really really bored at sea i used to try to rebuild shredded documents, it's not so difficult as the page pieces are normally close together when they come out of a shredder. That's why, as Kerryd has already said, we shredded then burned secure documents.

Yes it is a great game WOW 8 Million people play it I am one of those that do too

Just thought I would add to this subject

So whats the point?

The big thing at the moment is identity theft. With very little information, the thiefs can totally steal your identity for credit card scams and the like. It can take you years to get slate wiped clean and regain your identity.