Germany Abandons 6.5 Million Euro Plan to Reassemble Stasi Files Torn by Hand
The Reconstruction of Torn Documents
After spending €6.5 million since 2007, the Federal Archives has ended its contract with Fraunhofer IPK for the e-Puzzler, a computer-assisted reconstruction system that never reached its 80% automation goal. About 15,500 bags of hand-torn Stasi documents—some 400 to 600 million fragments—remain. Manual reconstruction continues, but a new market survey will seek a viable technical solution for the uniquely difficult task.
The virtual reconstruction process has no model to go on and is unique in the world. It involves developing a technology from scratch.
- kevin_thibedeau
> Could shredded paper be reconstructed?
> No. A few thousand other bags contained paper that had been shredded into incredibly small pieces in 1990. This material was destroyed back in 1991 after inspection by the Stasi Records Office. Hence, there is no longer any paper shredded by the Stasi at today's archive .
Shredder chads from the 90s can definitely be reconstructed. This is why the NSA has gradually decreased the maximum size permissible for chads. If they'd held on to that material they could be recovered today.
- ceejayoz
Vernor Vinge's Rainbows End includes this as a minor early plot point; libraries being fed into giant shredders that digitize and stitch together the scraps on their way to the incinerator.
- 2b3a51
I'm just wondering why the stasi didn't build a large pit somewhere in a land fill, put all the records in it and burn the lot. 16000 bags weighing what 10 kg each is something like 160 tonnes??
- mdbug
Just scan all the snippets and upload them. Someone will figure it out.
- bbor
Wow, fascinating! I hope I’m not the only OCR-minded soul on here that immediately started thinking of pipelines for this one could assemble from all our new DL-enabled toys… it’s a shame that “some American kid” probably doesn’t meet their contracting requirements.
One thing that kinda baffles is that it sounds like the snippets (I bet that German word is fun) haven’t been scanned(/photographed…?) yet. No matter who they contract with, wouldn’t that necessarily be step #1? Or is the scanning the part that needs contracting, and the “e-Puzzler” name was just a lil melodramatic?
For one thing, I feel like it’ll be wildly helpful that they’re on a variety of papers, not challenging like they imply. Once that and bag index have narrowed down neighbor candidates, you’ve got rules and glyphs to go off of, much less recognizable form layouts. It feels like the Vesuvius scrolls but actually tractable…