From: "Perry E. Metzger" <pmetzger@lehman.com>
Date: Wed, 20 Oct 93 15:32:49 PDT
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: Paper Shredders
In-Reply-To: <199310202046.AA10197@eff.org>
Message-ID: <9310202230.AA16605@snark.lehman.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



Stanton McCandlish says:
> > Does anyone know of an AFFORDABLE shredder that really destroys documents
> > by cutting them into confetti, rather than the easy-to-reassemble strips
> > that the typical shredder does?
> 
> Yeah, it's called fire.

Fire is, of course, an optimal solution, and those of us who live or
work in a building with a fireplace or incinerator would do well to
use it. However, its hard to spend every day burning things, and
besides that, many of us live and work in urban areas where fireplaces
and other places you can burn large numbers of papers are rare. The
question is thus not out of place.

By the way, the standard method for destroying embassy documents in
case of siezure (not done during the Iran hostage crisis) is
reportedly Thermit grenades. (Thermit would likely reduce a filing
cabinet to slag in moments.)

Perry