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Putting it back together again

The highly regarded movie "The Lives of Others" coldly and clinically examines the shadowy world of the former East German security agency, Stasi, and its impact on the lives of its citizenry. By the way, make it your business to catch this amazing movie.

Now the Spiegel on Line reveals a startling fact in relation to the Stasi records after all the years since the Berlin War came down, some 18 years ago:

"Millions of files consigned to paper shredders in the late days of the East German regime will be pieced together by computer. The massive job of reassembling this puzzle from the late Cold War was performed, until now, by hand.

It's been years in the making, but finally software designed to electronically piece together some 45 million shredded documents from the East German secret police went into service in Berlin on Wednesday. Now, a puzzle that would take 30 diligent Germans 600 to 800 years to finish by hand, according to one estimate, might be solved by computer in seven."

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