Puzzled Over Home Paper Shredders ?
Puzzled Over Home Paper Shredders?
Your major objective when choosing a paper shredder is to make
the documents you feed into it unreadable. You are trying to
thwart would be identity thieves, not trying to keep classified
documents from the hands of terrorist networks. When you shred a
document, you need to cut it into enough pieces to deter someone
from trying to reassemble it. Cutting your documents into 3/16"
strips may work, but a thief with a little determination could
assemble these strips, especially since much of your credit card
and medical data has distinct markings. These markings will
allow a person to assemble the documents much like a puzzle, and
everyone knows that the hardest puzzles have a lot of pieces.
This is precisely why a crosscut paper shredder that cuts
documents into fine pieces of confetti is the most logical
choice for securing discarded data.
If you are purchasing a home paper shredder, and do not want to
purchase the heavy duty paper shredders with the finest
shredding capability due to cost considerations, then make sure
you take out your shredding bin when it is full. Once again, the
more pieces the harder the puzzle.
If someone really wants to reassemble your shredded documents,
they can. Technology exists that can scan each fragment and
computer match the pieces. Or a person with a lot of time and
patience could accomplish the task. But identity thieves have
too many easy targets to spend their time reconstructing
shredded documents. Thieves are looking for the easy targets,
the low hanging fruit. Thieves want money without having to earn
it; assembling a 10,000 piece puzzle would qualify as earning
it.