14 DAY TRIAL // A team called All Your Shreds Are Belong To U.S. managed to develop an algorithm to solve the DARPA challenge that required contestants to reconstruct shredded documents.
By looking at similar edge shapes and distinctive marks on the more than 10,000 bits of paper, the team suggested the potential matches for any piece, thus managing to solve the seven-page puzzle, reports The Verge.
Even though they showed that it’s possible to reconstruct pieces of paper destroyed by a machine, this doesn’t mean that shredders are useless in properly disposing sensitive documents. It took the group around 600 man-hours to complete the task and they admit that the process was not easy at all.
Furthermore, the pieces of paper they were given were far fewer that what anyone would find in a trash bin, which made their job easier.
The competition was about to end when the winning team claimed their victory and the $50,000 (35,000 EUR) prize money.