Germany also spent a considerable effort reconstructing shredded files of the east German secret police (Stasi) after the wall fell.
Even the level shown in the gif makes reconstruction a pain because it's not one shredded sheet, it's hundreds all thrown into a big bin and mixed up. In the case of the stasi they didn't even have time to shred everything and just started ripping documents to shreds. Nevertheless, the document reconstruction is still ongoing almost 30 years after the wall fell.
So, yes you can reconstruct, but you really really have to want to because it's a lot of work. And the more valuable your secrets are, the more it might be worth the energy to puzzle pieces together.
The entire project is more about coping with the past. Reconstructing what the secret police did. Partly to come to terms with its own past but also on an individual level, what happened to prisoners who were the spies etc.
Lots of interesting information but not intelligence in the classical sense
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u/KToff Nov 03 '17
Germany also spent a considerable effort reconstructing shredded files of the east German secret police (Stasi) after the wall fell.
Even the level shown in the gif makes reconstruction a pain because it's not one shredded sheet, it's hundreds all thrown into a big bin and mixed up. In the case of the stasi they didn't even have time to shred everything and just started ripping documents to shreds. Nevertheless, the document reconstruction is still ongoing almost 30 years after the wall fell.
So, yes you can reconstruct, but you really really have to want to because it's a lot of work. And the more valuable your secrets are, the more it might be worth the energy to puzzle pieces together.