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Puzzled Over Home Paper Shredders ?

By: Corey Duncan, Thu Dec 8th, 2005 12:01:47 AM

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.

About the author: Corey Duncan is the ownerp of Home Paper Shredders which provides a wealth of information concerning crosscut shredders and pc file shredders.

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