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Published online 10 May 2007 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news070508-9

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Anti-shredder aims to stick spy files back together

Computer program should re-assemble notes from the East German Stasi.

A research team in Germany has developed a computer-software system to piece together some 45 million pages of secret police files ripped into 600 million pieces. The files were torn up nearly 18 years ago by panicking agents of communist East Germany's dreaded State Security Service (Stasi).

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