As everyone now knows from the police shows and the movies, standard issue shredders are no longer sufficient, as the would-be spies simply tip out the garbage bag and then patiently paste your old love letters and gas bills back together. (Sometimes aided by fancy computer programs, if we are to believe the movies.)

So, for the paranoid, this shredder further obfuscates the waste by depositing alternate strips in up to four different garbage bags. Assuming you then take the precaution of disposing of the bags in different locations, the priers in your life now cannot begin to match the strips up.
-- DrCurry, Dec 15 2003

You need some of this, mate http://www.newscien...s.jsp?id=ns99994451
heat-activated disappearing ink [friendlyfire, Oct 05 2004, last modified Oct 17 2004]

(?) Cross cut shreddder http://www.google.c...r&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8
Now I work for the government, we have to use these shredders [hippo, Oct 05 2004, last modified Oct 17 2004]

Why not individually wrap each strip of paper? Then it would be *really* inconvenient for a thief to reassemble them :)
-- phundug, Dec 15 2003


The shredder could secrete glue. Or ink. Either one would be sufficient to prevent your important documents from being reassembled. Perhaps this is a good destination for discarded copier toner?
-- Overpanic, Dec 15 2003


send the shredded strips into a container of acid - that'll fox 'em.
-- po, Dec 15 2003


I was thinking stinky fish oil or the like. No one'll want to get near them.
-- phundug, Dec 15 2003


+ Some sort of comb attachment that channels the shreds into different bins, such that no adjacent shreds are in the same bin.
-- AO, Dec 15 2003


I have a trash bin and a recycling bin in my office, but the janitor only pushes around one big trash barrel when he comes to collect ... Something tells me that he would just empty all four of these shredder bins/bags into the same large barrel... I still like the idea though
-- luecke, Dec 15 2003


You need to devise a shredded paper exchange scheme with three other people who work in different offices.
-- AO, Dec 15 2003


Surely if the shredder is shredding *my* documents it should build a small papier-mâchè model of *me* out of the shreddings?
-- hippo, Dec 15 2003


Good idea ! I already do this manually - by keeping one half of my shred bin in a carrier bag - which I then throw out another time.

Couldn't the shredder also randomly 'ink' the paper (in strips) just before it's shredded....to make it harder to locate individual shreds ?
-- monojohnny, Jan 13 2005


On the down-side, what you are doing is partially sorting the strips. So if spies could get hold of the shreddings they would have a very much easier job deciphering them.
Probably 3 of 4 bags would be sufficient for this to work. And disposing of them in different places is equivalent to security through obscurity - if anyone is motivated enough to de-shred your documents, they are probably inclined to locate all your disposal sites.

This is not insumountable of course. What you want to do is randomly assign your shreddings to the different bags.

Best to be sure though. I suggest cross-shredding, with a 'shadow' document of the same format but randomly generated text. Then the pieces should be thoroughly mixed in a container of previously shredded documents. When the container is full dispose of a small proportion by several different routes. Some should be recycled, some exchanged with other local offices, and some dyed different colours and thrown in the air at weddings.
-- Loris, Feb 16 2005


Or possibly a small fire?
-- angel, Feb 16 2005


Yes, shredders have made us lazy. People just don't burn evidence enough anymore.
-- Worldgineer, Feb 16 2005


//Or possibly a small fire?//

You're no fun any more.
-- Loris, Jul 05 2005



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