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."
They probably don't want an expensive solution that takes ages to develop and implement. What they're looking for is a cheap, easy-to-deploy-in-the-field solution. The prize attracts a different type of applicant with different methods and tools.
Edit: To clarify: A prize of $1 million may result in everyone spending $100,000 to find the solution quickly, when in fact DARPA only wants solutions that can be developed at a price well under $50,000.
I disagree. If they want cheap and easy to deploy, add it to the spec. As it is, a prize is offered to get the attention of talent. $50K won't get the attention of anyone even remotely talented enough to produce "best of show" solutions. I suggest $1million will get their attention.
they don't want a million dollar solution. Among other goals, they want to know what a solution can a 3rd party get at this market and technology state on a budget of $50K scale. Ie. how sound the DoD shredding practices is.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
"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."
“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.”
Another - Russian security agencies use Western hardware ( i mean what other option do they have seriously ?). Before being put to use the hardware is disassembled as much as it is possible with specific goal of finding the "mini-scanners". Similar history - http://www.spybusters.com/Great_Seal_Bug.html
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?
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).
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.
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.
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?
"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."