

DARPA: reconstruct shredded documents, win $50,000 - mef
http://www.shredderchallenge.com/

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mef
Yes, this is a solved problem. That isn't the point of the competition. From
the site:

"Today’s troops often confiscate the remnants of destroyed documents in war
zones, but reconstructing them is a daunting task. DARPA’s Shredder Challenge
calls upon computer scientists, puzzle enthusiasts and anyone else who likes
solving complex problems to compete for up to $50,000 by piecing together a
series of shredded documents. The goal is to identify and assess potential
capabilities that could be used by our warfighters operating in war zones, but
might also create vulnerabilities to sensitive information that is protected
through our own shredding practices throughout the U.S. national security
community.

Presently, a variety of techniques exist for reconstructing shredded documents
including manual assembly, fully automated (computerized) algorithms and
hybrid operator-assisted approaches. DARPA hopes to gain new insight into
which of these or other innovative techniques are quicker and more efficient,
and, whether the wide availability of high resolution photography,
communication and crowd-sourcing strategies offer unexpected advances.

“The ability to reconstruct shredded documents will potentially yield
information that may save lives or offer critical information about an
adversary’s plans,” said Mr. Dan Kaufman, Director of DARPA’s Information
Innovation Office. “Currently, this process is much too slow and too labor-
intensive, particularly if the documents are handwritten. We are looking to
the Shredder Challenge to generate some leap-ahead thinking in this area.”

The Shredder Challenge is composed of five separate problems in which the
number of documents, subject matter and the method of shredding is varied to
present challenges of increasing difficulty. To complete each problem,
participants are called upon to provide answers to puzzles embedded in the
content of reconstructed documents. The overall prize awarded depends on the
number and difficulty of problems solved.

Registration is open to all eligible parties at www.shredderchallenge.com,
which provides detailed rules and images of the shredded documents for the
five problems. The twitter hashtag for this event is #shredderchallenge.
Participants are encouraged to build teams using the event forum and to
monitor www.twitter.com/darpa_news for the latest news updates."

~~~
hugh3
Alternative hypothesis: the point of the competition is to make people think
that reconstructing shredded documents is harder than it is.

Why? So that the enemy will keep on shredding documents instead of burning
'em.

~~~
malkia
If that's the case, it reminds of Enigma, and how the allies were sending spy
teams trying to steal an enigma, while they already had one.... Hmmm....

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brador
For $50,000? Is that all this is worth to them?

I would say it is certainly technically possible with modern tech, but
seriously...$50k?

Change the prize to a million dollars and you'd get a solution overnight.

~~~
kevinalexbrown
It's more about generating publicity for DARPA than an actual solution. Just
look at the website design and the language. I mean seriously, a forum?

Most public DARPA projects are awarded via grant application from serious
labs, and the funding often goes out before you reach a solution, since they
fund high-risk projects with a low enough likelihood of a solution that
profit-seeking companies won't want to try it otherwise.

~~~
VladRussian
>I mean seriously, a forum?

it sounds like you somehow missed the Grand Challenge trilogy.

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sitkack
germans already solved this to recover shredded stasi documents. take german
solution, profit.

<http://www.iiconservation.org/news/?p=55>

[http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2008/01/unshredding_1....](http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2008/01/unshredding_1.html)

~~~
edge17
wow, fascinating stuff. thanks for posting

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steve8918
I'm probably in the upper range in terms of regular-folk-paranoia, but even
after shredding my documents, I usually mix it in with food and regular
garbage so that the information is destroyed. I also don't just shred
important documents, I shred everything so that it's even harder to discern
what is important and what isn't.

The irony, of course, is that despite my paranoia, my identity has been stolen
because of a screw up with the credit agencies and I've been dealing with all
3 credit agencies for months trying to resolve this.

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Omnipresent
Today is a fail. First I got invited for a lunch at HUD HQ in DC for a meet
and greet but instead of lunch they had cookies and water and now DARPA only
offering $50,000 for document reconstruction?

I guess govt cuts really are strict.

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ryanwhitney
Why don't "challenges" such as this get the same hate as "$300 for the best
logo" contests?

It's purely spec work, and in this case requires much more time and effort in
comparison the the shallow work done on 99designs or elance.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
You can keep the work though from what I can tell - if you have a shredded
documet reconstruction system then you can simply scan five docs and get $50k
... they don't keep the thing that's valuable, the system.

In a logo comp the only thing created of value is the output itself. The
equivalent would be if the logo competition was to create a machine that
created logos on demand and then only give you a small price for that machine.

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daimyoyo
I am not sure the window here is long enough to develop a method of
reconstructing these documents that will scale to the what the DOD would need.
Honestly this feels kind of like the old myth about carrots making your sight
better(a ruse to keep RADAR a secret from the Germans). I am virtually certain
the gov't already has this technology perfected, but this is a way to make
people think we don't.

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rflrob
My intuition suggests that all of these documents being on lined paper would
make the problem quite a bit easier, by providing clear features that have to
line up between fragments.

At any rate, it makes you wonder if most documents are on lined paper, or if
it's more common to see things on, for example, white printer paper.

~~~
cagey
Or if paper in general has some sort of "grain" created during its
manufacturing process?

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Vivtek
I find it mildly disconcerting that DARPA's server infrastructure is clearly
not scaling well for this announcement.

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icefox
While a neat puzzle doesn't anyone else think that the NSA was able to do this
decades ago?

~~~
VladRussian
by making all shredders to contain secret mini scanner

:)

~~~
JakeSc
Do you have evidence that this has been done? I am reminded of the secret
identifying marks that printers leave on their documents.

[https://www.eff.org/wp/investigating-machine-
identification-...](https://www.eff.org/wp/investigating-machine-
identification-code-technology-color-laser-printers)

~~~
influx
<http://editinternational.com/read.php?id=47ddf19823b89>

"Roy Zoppoth stands over a Xerox 914 copy machine, the world's first, which
was used in soviet embassies all over the world. The machine was so complex
that the CIA used a tiny camera designed by Zoppoth to capture documents
copied on the machine by the soviets and retrieved them using a "Xerox
repairman" right under the eyes of soviet security."

~~~
nitrogen
I found this paragraph even more interesting:

 _“From the numbers of cameras ordered, we later realized the CIA had placed
secret cameras in every Xerox copy machine in all embassies in the world –
friend and foe alike.”_

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finnw
_Entries may only be submitted by a registered participant, who must be a
permanent resident or citizen of the United States_

Shame - I don't know why they would not want entries from people outside the
US.

~~~
gecko
You don't know why our war department would not want to pay foreign nationals
for code that they intend to use in a battle situation? Is it honestly that
hard to figure out why that restriction might be in place?

~~~
kevinalexbrown
DARPA has a ton of research done by foreign nationals. (I have worked in labs
which have foreign nationals who get paid to write code for DARPA projects).

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hvs
Netflix offers $1MM to improve their algorithm by 10% and $50,000 is all that
DARPA can offer for a _harder_ problem?

~~~
thematt
It doesn't appear you even need to provide an algorithm. You can solve it
manually and still win the money.

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phaus
If the shredded documents are of the same type as those in the picture, this
isn't much of a challenge.

I was hoping to see some sort of ridiculous challenge to piece together
documents that were destroyed by a high end unit that was specifically
designed for sensitive documents. They basically spit out sawdust.

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pmorici
If this is for the "warfighter" is shredded document reconstruction really a
commonly encountered problem in the US's current wars in Afghanistan and Iraq?
Its seems that in Afghanistan, for example, they don't even have electricity
in the majority of the country let alone paper shredders.

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Rickasaurus
Seriously DARPA? 50K? That's no Netflix prize.

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swah
Your password policy (and error reporting) for registering is so stupid I
don't want to work with you guys anymore, ok? Don't get in touch.

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trebor
Personally, I shred documents to make sure they're destroyed. Why would I ever
want to help DARPA come up with a way to reconstruct them?

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fletchowns
Because you can't read the first sentence of the damn article?

~~~
trebor
I find the first sentence to be inadequately motivating.

Besides, if DARPA _does_ invent this who's to say they won't turn it on the
American populace? And who's to say that folks won't go back to burning their
documents?

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code4pay
You know will go "missing" once you have put it back together and seen the
document.

