A
paper shredder is a mechanical device used to cut
paperPaper is a thin material mainly used for writing upon, printing upon, drawing or for packaging. It is produced by pressing together moist fibers, typically cellulose pulp derived from wood, rags or grasses, and drying them into flexible sheets....
into
chadChad refers to paper fragments created when holes are made in a paper, card or similar synthetic materials, typically computer punched tape or punched cards. Sometimes chad has been used as a mass noun or as a countable noun, and the plural is commonly either "chad" or "chads"...
, typically either strips or fine particles. Government organizations, businesses, and private individuals use shredders to destroy private,
confidentialConfidentiality is an ethical principle associated with several professions . In ethics, and in law and alternative forms of legal resolution such as mediation, some types of communication between a person and one of these professionals are "privileged" and may not be discussed or divulged to...
, or otherwise sensitive documents.
PrivacyPrivacy is the ability of an individual or group to seclude themselves or information about themselves and thereby reveal themselves selectively...
experts often recommend that individuals shred bills, tax documents, credit card and bank account statements, and other items which could be used by thieves to commit
fraudIn criminal law, a fraud is an intentional deception made for personal gain or to damage another individual; the related adjective is fraudulent. The specific legal definition varies by legal jurisdiction. Fraud is a crime, and also a civil law violation...
or
identity theftIdentity theft is a form of stealing another person's identity in which someone pretends to be someone else by assuming that person's identity, typically in order to access resources or obtain credit and other benefits in that person's name...
.
History
The first paper shredder is credited to prolific inventor
Abbot Augustus LowAbbot Augustus Low was an entrepreneur and inventor from Brooklyn, who lived in St. Lawrence County, New York and was the owner of the Horseshoe Forestry Company...
of Horseshoe, located on the Western shore of Horseshoe Lake, in
Piercefield, New YorkPiercefield is a town in St. Lawrence County, New York, United States. The population was 305 at the 2000 census.The Town of Piercefield is in the southeast corner of the county and is southeast of Canton.- History :...
. His patent for a "waste paper receptacle" to offer an improved method of disposing of waste paper was filed on February 2, 1909 and received the U.S. patent number 929,960 on August 31, 1909. Low’s invention was never manufactured, however.
Adolf Ehinger's paper shredder, based on a hand-crank pasta maker, was manufactured in 1935 in Germany. Supposedly he needed to shred his anti-Nazi propaganda to avoid the inquiries of the authorities. Ehinger later marketed his shredders to government agencies and financial institutions converting from hand-crank to electric motor. Ehinger's company, EBA Maschinenfabrik, manufactured the first cross-cut paper shredders in 1959 and continues to do so to this day as EBA Krug & Priester GmbH & Co. in
BalingenBalingen is a town in Baden-Württemberg, Germany, capital of the district of Zollernalbkreis. It is located nearby the Swabian Alb, approx. 35 km to the south of Tübingen, 35 km northeast of Villingen-Schwenningen, and 60 km southwest of Stuttgart.It is home to the Bizerba and Ideal...
.
The U.S. embassy in Iran used strip-cut paper shredders to reduce paper pages to strips before the embassy was taken over in 1979 (though not entirely successfully). After Colonel
Oliver NorthOliver Laurence North is a retired U.S. Marine Corps officer, political commentator, host of War Stories with Oliver North on Fox News Channel, a military historian, and a New York Times best-selling author....
told Congress that he used a Schleicher Intimus 007 S cross-cut model to shred Iran-Contra documents, sales for that company increased nearly 20 percent in 1987.
Until the mid-1980s, it was rare for paper shredders to be used by non-government entities. After the 1984
Supreme CourtThe Supreme Court of the United States is the highest court in the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all state and federal courts, and original jurisdiction over a small range of cases...
decision in
California v. GreenwoodCalifornia v. Greenwood, 486 U.S. 35 , was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that the Fourth Amendment does not prohibit the warrantless search and seizure of garbage left for collection outside the curtilage of a home....
, in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that the
Fourth AmendmentThe Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution is the part of the Bill of Rights which guards against unreasonable searches and seizures, along with requiring any warrant to be judicially sanctioned and supported by probable cause...
does not prohibit the warrantless search and seizure of garbage left for collection outside of a home, paper shredders became more popular among US citizens with
privacyPrivacy is the ability of an individual or group to seclude themselves or information about themselves and thereby reveal themselves selectively...
concerns. Anti-burning laws, concern over landfills, industrial espionage, and identity theft concerns created greater demand for paper shredding.
The US Federal Trade Commission estimates that 9 million cases of
identity theftIdentity theft is a form of stealing another person's identity in which someone pretends to be someone else by assuming that person's identity, typically in order to access resources or obtain credit and other benefits in that person's name...
take place per year in the USA alone and recommends that individuals defend themselves against identity theft by shredding financial documents before disposal.
News agencies have driven awareness of information theft to the extent that most consumers, healthcare organizations and businesses understand the importance of destroying confidential information. Also, information privacy laws like FACTA, HIPAA and the
Gramm-Leach-Bliley ActThe Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act , also known as the Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999, is an act of the 106th United States Congress...
are driving shredder sales as businesses and individuals take steps to comply to avoid legal complications.
Types of shredders
Shredders range in size and price from small and inexpensive units meant for a few pages, to large units used by commercial shredding services that costs hundreds of thousands of dollars and can shred millions of documents an hour. Some shredders used by a commercial
shredding service are built into a
shredding truck.
The normal small shredder is an electrically powered device, but there are unpowered ones such as special scissors with multiple blade pair and shredders which are hand-cranked.
These machines are classified according to the size and shape of the shreds they produce. (As a practical matter, this is also a measure of the degree of
randomnessRandomness has somewhat differing meanings as used in various fields. It also has common meanings which are connected to the notion of predictability of events....
or
entropyEntropy is a thermodynamic property that can be used to determine the energy available for useful work in a thermodynamic process, such as in energy conversion devices, engines, or machines. Such devices can only be driven by convertible energy, and have a theoretical maximum efficiency when...
they generate.) Shredders can range in size from standard scissors and other hand-operated devices all the way up to truck-sized shredders. There are also shredder selector sites that can help consumers choose a shredder that is appropriate for their needs.
- Strip-cut shredders, the least secure, use rotating knives to cut narrow strips as long as the original sheet of paper. Such strips can be reassembled by a determined and patient investigator or adversary, as the product (the destroyed information) of this type of shredder is the least randomized. It also creates the highest volume of waste inasmuch as the chad has the largest surface area and is not compressed.
- Cross-cut or confetti
Confetti is a multitude of pieces of paper, mylar or metallic material which is usually thrown at parades and celebrations, especially weddings . Confetti is made in a variety of colors, and commercially available confetti is available in imaginative shapes...
-cut shredders use two contra-rotating drums to cut rectangular, parallelogram, or diamond-shaped (or lozengeA lozenge , often referred to as a diamond, is a form of rhombus. The definition of lozenge is not strictly fixed, and it is sometimes used simply as a synonym for rhombus. Most often, though, lozenge refers to a thin rhombus—a rhombus with acute angles of 45°...
) shreds.
- Particle-cut shredders create tiny square or circular pieces.
- Cardboard shredders are designed specifically to shred corrugated material into either strips or a mesh pallet.
- Disintegrators and granulators repeatedly cut the paper at random until the particles are small enough to pass through a mesh.
- Hammermills pound the paper through a screen.
- Pierce and Tear Rotating blades pierce the paper and then tear it apart.
- Grinders A rotating shaft with cutting blades grinds the paper until it is small enough to fall through a screen.
There are numerous standards for the security levels of paper shredders, including:
- DIN
DIN or Din or din can have several meanings:* A din is a loud noise.* Dīn, an Arabic term meaning "religion" or "way of life".* Din is one of the ten aspects of the Ein Sof in Kabbalah ....
32757
- Level 1 = 12 mm strips OR 11 x 40mm particles
- Level 2 = 6 mm strips OR 8 x 40mm particles
- Level 3 = 2 mm strips OR 4 x 30mm particles (Confidential)
- Level 4 = 2 x 15 mm particles (Commercially Sensitive)
- Level 5 = 0.8 x 12 mm particles (Top Secret or Classified)
- Level 6 = 0.8 x 4 mm particles (Top Secret or Classified) (unofficial extension of the DIN 32757-1 standard)
- United States Department of Defense
The United States Department of Defense is the U.S...
(DoD)
- Top Secret
Classified information is sensitive information to which access is restricted by law or regulation to particular groups of persons. A formal security clearance is required to handle classified documents or access classified data. The clearance process requires a satisfactory background investigation...
= 0.8 x 11.1 mm (1/32" × 7/16") no longer approved after 1 October 2008 for U.S. governmentThe federal government of the United States is the national government of the constitutional republic of fifty states that is the United States of America. The federal government comprises three distinct branches of government: a legislative, an executive and a judiciary. These branches and...
classified documentsThe United States government classification system is currently established under Executive Order 13526, the latest in a long series of executive orders on the topic. Issued by President Barack Obama in 2009, Executive Order 13526 replaced earlier executive orders on the topic and modified the...
- United States National Security Agency
The National Security Agency/Central Security Service is a cryptologic intelligence agency of the United States Department of Defense responsible for the collection and analysis of foreign communications and foreign signals intelligence, as well as protecting U.S...
/CSS 02-01 = 1 × 5 mm required for all U.S. government classified document destruction starting 1 October 2008.
Historically, the
General Services AdministrationThe General Services Administration is an independent agency of the United States government, established in 1949 to help manage and support the basic functioning of federal agencies. The GSA supplies products and communications for U.S...
(GSA) set paper shredder guidance in the Interim Federal Specification FF-S-001169 dated July 1971 which was superseded by standard A-A-2599 for classified material which was canceled in February 2000. GSA has not published a new standard since.
There are alternative shredders that use
combustionCombustion or burning is the sequence of exothermic chemical reactions between a fuel and an oxidant accompanied by the production of heat and conversion of chemical species. The release of heat can result in the production of light in the form of either glowing or a flame...
, chemical
decompositionDecomposition is the process by which organic material is broken down into simpler forms of matter. The process is essential for recycling the finite matter that occupies physical space in the biome. Bodies of living organisms begin to decompose shortly after death...
, or composting for disposing of the shreds.
Shredder trucks
A
mobile shredding truck is a
box truckA box truck, also known as a cube truck, cube van, bob truck, box van, or straight truck, is a truck with a cuboid-shaped cargo area.-Road vehicles:...
with an industrial sized paper shredder mounted inside the box, typically in the front section of the box, closest to the cab. The box is divided into two sections: the shredding equipment area, and the payload area for storage of the shredded materials. These trucks have been designed to shred up to 8000 lb (3,628.7 kg) of paper an hour. Mobile shredding trucks can have a shredded material storage capacity of 6000 pound of shredded paper. Office paper is the typical material being shredded, but with increasing security concerns customers also request shredding of CDs,
DVDA DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
s, hard drives,
credit cardA credit card is a small plastic card issued to users as a system of payment. It allows its holder to buy goods and services based on the holder's promise to pay for these goods and services...
s, and uniforms, among other things. There are many manufactures for mobile shredding trucks but only a few of them design equipment in house.
Shredding services
Some companies outsource their shredding to
shredding services. These companies either shred on-site, with mobile shredder trucks or have off-site shredding facilities. Documents that need to be destroyed are often placed in bins that are emptied periodically.
In Canada, there are no provincial or federal regulations for the operations of the industry. Companies can voluntarily join an international association called NAID where they get bi-yearly announced and unannounced audits.
Shredder innovation
As the demand for commercial and personal shredders grows, shredder manufacturers continue to develop new features that improve the shredder user's experience with efficiency, convenience and safety.
- Jam proof shredders – many new shredders have means to detect paper thickness to avoid paper jams by rejecting paper that is fed over capacity, and have more powerful motors to handle jumbled or misfed paper.
- Safety sensor – The shredder automatically shuts off when hands are too close to the paper entry.
- Silent operation – Shredders designed for noise reduction in shared workspaces or department copy rooms.
- Energy savings – Shredders that enter a power-saving sleep mode
Sleep mode refers to a low power mode for electronic devices such as computers, televisions, and remote controlled devices. These modes save significant electrical consumption compared to leaving a device fully on and idle, but allow the user to avoid having to reset programming codes or wait for a...
when not in use.
- Mess reduction – the shredder features an automatic cleaning cycle that prevents paper build-up on cutters. To eliminate overflow, a sensor lets the user know when to empty the bin while a sliding flap contains dangling shreds.
Shredder Applications
- Animal Bedding – Animal bedding is one of the most economical and ecological methods of recycling. Waste paper, be it news print or off cuts, can be shredded and bagged to produce a warm and comfy bed for animals. This then decomposes very quickly on a muck heap.
- Security Shredding – Document destruction, to prevent identity theft was one of the earliest uses of shredders. Shredding into strips, or dicing documents, makes it nearly impossible for the documents to be read after shredding.
- Void Fill and Packaging – Shredded material can be used both as an aesthetic and functional product. Shredded Cellophane can be used to package high street good, and shredded cardboard can be used as a void fill for the transportation of goods.
- Cardboard Briquettes – Briquettes are quickly becoming a viable alternative to coal and other non renewable fuels.
- Children's Playgrounds – Once tires have been shredded and granulated, they are often combined with a strong resin to create soft rubber playground.
- Waste Reduction – Shredding waste material generally reduces waste volume by up to 75%, which, for the remaining material that reaches landfill, is much less robust and takes up less room in fill.
- Insulation – In Japan, finely shredded newsprint is often mixed with flame-retardant chemicals and glue to create a spray-able insulation material for the construction of buildings to be applied on wall interiors and on the underside of roofing.
Shredding at high levels continues in government agencies too. According to the report of the
Paul Volcker CommitteeThe Paul Volcker Committee was formed to investigate alleged corruption and fraud in the United Nations Oil-for-Food Programme in Iraq....
, between April and December 2004,
Kofi AnnanKofi Atta Annan is a Ghanaian diplomat who served as the seventh Secretary-General of the UN from 1 January 1997 to 31 December 2006...
’s then Chef de Cabinet Iqbal Riza authorized thousands of UN documents shredded including the entire chronological files of the
Oil-for-Food ProgrammeThe Oil-for-Food Programme , established by the United Nations in 1995 was established with the stated intent to allow Iraq to sell oil on the world market in exchange for food, medicine, and other humanitarian needs for ordinary Iraqi citizens without allowing Iraq to boost its military...
between the years 1997-1999.
The
Union Bank of SwitzerlandUnion Bank of Switzerland was a large integrated financial services company located in Switzerland. The bank, which at the time was the second largest bank in Switzerland, merged with Swiss Bank Corporation in 1998, to become UBS to form what was then the largest bank in Europe and the second...
used paper shredders to destroy evidence that their company owned property stolen from
JewsThe Jews , also known as the Jewish people, are a nation and ethnoreligious group originating in the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East. The Jewish ethnicity, nationality, and religion are strongly interrelated, as Judaism is the traditional faith of the Jewish nation...
during the Holocaust by the Nazi government. The shredding was uncovered to the public by the work of
Christoph MeiliChristoph Meili is a Swiss whistleblower and Swiss-American security professional.In early 1997, Meili worked as a night guard at the Union Bank of Switzerland in Zurich, Switzerland...
, a security guard working at the bank who happened to wander by a room where the shredding was taking place. Also in the shredding room were books from the German
ReichsbankThe Reichsbank was the central bank of Germany from 1876 until 1945. It was founded on 1 January 1876 . The Reichsbank was a privately owned central bank of Prussia, under close control by the Reich government. Its first president was Hermann von Dechend...
. They listed stock accounts for companies involved in the holocaust, including
BASFBASF SE is the largest chemical company in the world and is headquartered in Germany. BASF originally stood for Badische Anilin- und Soda-Fabrik . Today, the four letters are a registered trademark and the company is listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange, London Stock Exchange, and Zurich Stock...
,
DegussaEvonik Industries is an industrial corporation in Germany owned by RAG Foundation and one of the world´s leading specialty chemicals companies. It was created on 12 September 2007 as a result of restructuring of the mining and technology group RAG...
, and
DegeschThe Deutsche Gesellschaft für Schädlingsbekämpfung mbH , in short Degesch, was a German chemical corporation during World War II. Degesch produced pesticides used against weeds and insects...
. They also listed real-estate records for Berlin property that had been forcibly taken by the Nazis, placed in Swiss accounts, and then claimed to be owned by UBS. Destruction of such documents was a violation of Swiss laws.
Unshredding
In some cases it is technically possible to reassemble the pieces of shredded documents; the feasibility of such a project is a
cost-to-benefitCost–benefit analysis , sometimes called benefit–cost analysis , is a systematic process for calculating and comparing benefits and costs of a project for two purposes: to determine if it is a sound investment , to see how it compares with alternate projects...
calculation. If the chad is not further randomized, the strips that belonged to the same document tend to come out of the shredder close to each other and remain roughly in that configuration. Furthermore, when the documents are fed to the shredder in a way that the lines of text are not perpendicular to the shredder blades, portions of text may remain legible on the strips.
If the shredder doesn't cut paper small enough, confidential documents could be removed from the trash, reassembled and read. This can lead to corporate espionage as
dumpster divingDumpster diving is the practice of sifting through commercial or residential trash to find items that have been discarded by their owners, but that may be useful to the dumpster diver.-Etymology and alternate names:...
is the easiest way for professional thieves to steal sensitive information from businesses. For this reason, several new shredders provide protection from information theft by cutting paper into pieces significantly smaller than the length of a staple.
These micro cut shredders make it difficult for criminals to assemble a document by cutting a piece of paper into about 3,770 bits vs. the average confetti cut shredder, which cuts a piece of paper into 300 pieces or the average strip cut shredder, which cuts a piece of paper into 34 strips.
After the
Iranian RevolutionThe Iranian Revolution refers to events involving the overthrow of Iran's monarchy under Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and its replacement with an Islamic republic under Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the leader of the...
and the takeover of the U.S. embassy in
TehranTehran , sometimes spelled Teheran, is the capital of Iran and Tehran Province. With an estimated population of 8,429,807; it is also Iran's largest urban area and city, one of the largest cities in Western Asia, and is the world's 19th largest city.In the 20th century, Tehran was subject to...
in 1979, Iranians enlisted local carpet weavers who reconstructed the pieces by hand. The recovered documents would be later released by the Iranian regime in a series of books called "Documents from the US espionage Den". The US government subsequently improved its shredding techniques by adding pulverizing, pulping, and chemical decomposition protocols.
Modern computer technology considerably speeds up the process of reassembling shredded documents. The strips are scanned on both sides, and then the computer determines how the strips should be put together. Robert Johnson of the National Association for Information Destruction; has stated that there is a huge demand for document reconstruction. Several companies offer commercial document reconstruction services. For maximum security, documents should be shredded so that the words of the document go through the shredder horizontally (i.e. perpendicular to the blades). Many of the documents in the
Enron Accounting scandalsThe Enron scandal, revealed in October 2001, eventually led to the bankruptcy of the Enron Corporation, an American energy company based in Houston, Texas, and the dissolution of Arthur Andersen, which was one of the five largest audit and accountancy partnerships in the world...
were fed through the shredder the wrong way, making them easier to reassemble.
There is currently an effort underway to recover the shredded archives of the
StasiThe Ministry for State Security The Ministry for State Security The Ministry for State Security (German: Ministerium für Staatssicherheit (MfS), commonly known as the Stasi (abbreviation , literally State Security), was the official state security service of East Germany. The MfS was headquartered...
, the East German secret police. There are "millions of shreds of paper that panicked Stasi officials threw into garbage bags during the regime's final days in the fall of 1989". As it took three dozen people six years to reconstruct 300 of the 16,000 bags, the Fraunhofer-IPK institute has developed the "Stasi-Schnipselmaschine" (
Stasi snippet machine) for computerized reconstruction and is testing it in a pilot project.
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 Shredder Challenge consists of five separate puzzles in which the number of documents, the document subject matter and the method of shredding will be varied to present challenges of increasing difficulty. To complete each problem, participants must provide the answer to a puzzle embedded in the content of the reconstructed document. The overall prizewinner and prize awarded will depend on the number and difficulty of the problems solved. DARPA will release the challenge problems on October 27, 2011 at 12:00 PM Eastern and announce a winner the week of December 5, 2011 once final results are calculated.
Forensic identification
Document shredders display certain device-specific characteristics, "
fingerprintA fingerprint in its narrow sense is an impression left by the friction ridges of a human finger. In a wider use of the term, fingerprints are the traces of an impression from the friction ridges of any part of a human hand. A print from the foot can also leave an impression of friction ridges...
s", like the exact spacing of the blades, the degree and pattern of their wear. These can be reconstructed from the minute variations of size of the paper strips and the microscopic marks on their edges, and by comparison with the strips produced by known shredders, the individual shredder that was used to destroy a given document may be determined. Jack Brassil, a researcher for
Hewlett-PackardHewlett-Packard Company or HP is an American multinational information technology corporation headquartered in Palo Alto, California, USA that provides products, technologies, softwares, solutions and services to consumers, small- and medium-sized businesses and large enterprises, including...
, works on a project for making shredders more easily traceable. (Cf. the forensic identification of typewriters.)
Injury risk with residential shredders
As with any motorized cutting equipment, there is a risk of injury. As shredders migrated to home environments with children and pets, shredder safety became an important issue. As early as 1985, personal injuries have occurred as a result of consumers operating shredders. As the number of paper shredders per household increased, so did the number of accidents. From January 2000 through September 2005, the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) received 50 reports of incidents involving finger amputations, lacerations, and other severe injuries from paper shredders. The majority of injuries happened to children under the age of five.
To increase consumer awareness of these potential safety hazards, two important safety alerts were issued:
- Fall 2005 – Consumer Product Safety Council Shredder Safety Alert
- February 2006 – American Academy of Pediatrics Shredder Safety Alert
Although designed with a narrow opening to the cutting wheels, shredders still pose a danger to pets and small children. Children as young as four months of age have the ability to imitate adults. As children grow older, this tendency to mimic adult behavior increases and parents might not anticipate the dangers of children accidentally activating a shredder. This puts children at risk for serious injury, even with adult supervision. Children’s fingers can easily be pulled into the paper entry through the force of the shredding mechanism.
Many new shredders on the market now feature improved safety features:
- Safety sensor – new technology ensures the shredder automatically shuts off when hands are too close to the paper entry. The sensor around the paper entry senses the magnetic energy field carried by humans and larger pets. When this energy field is detected, the shredder instantly shuts down. As soon as the energy field is removed, the shredder starts up again.
- Slimmer paper entry – this reduces the chance of fingers getting pulled into the shredding mechanism. The entry can also be made of an inflexible material to prevent the opening from widening under pressure.
- Safety lock – this safety feature puts the shredder into a safe, inactive mode to prevent children from activating the shredder mechanism. The adult user simply locks the activation switch in the "off" position.
- Safety flap – this flap covers cutters when the shredder head is removed from the wastebasket.
- Safety interlock switch – this switch ensures the shredder will not activate when the shredder head is removed from the wastebasket.
Many home shredders can be left in a "stand-by" mode that will start the cutting process when anything is inserted into the feed slot. In homes with small children or pets, simply keeping the shredder unplugged while not in use can also reduce any risk.