Why is Argo (the movie) a Scientific Endorsement of Cross Cut Paper Shredders?

Posted by willrobert on July 25th, 2017

Argo, the Oscar winning best picture of 2013, surprisingly, makes for an excellent learning case when it comes to paper shredders. It is in the climax of the movie that the significance of state-of-the-art paper shredders comes to light. Supreme to the plot of the movie was the capturing of image of one of the six U.S diplomats, who were being covertly rescued, through reassembling the strips of the shredded documents.

Although all the six diplomats returned home safely, the real-life incident led to prolific advances with regards to paper shredding technology. The absence of high-tech cross cut paper shredders is one reason why the Iranian student militia was able to put together the image of one of the diplomats in such a short period of time.

Levels of shredding
Following the capture of many government documents in Iran, most levels of U.S and Canadian governments defined specific levels of paper shredding to secure sensitive information and maintain desired confidentiality.

The levels range from a low 1 to a high security shred of 6 depending upon the gravity of the information. Level 6 is, of course, used for top secret documents as the size of the shreds is so minuscule that it can be blown away with a simple puff of air.

Types of paper shredders : Specific to needs
The frantic scene in Argo where the shredders couldn’t respond to the speed of the loading of the documents, is a good learning experience for the paper shredder manufacturers. The emphasis, currently, is on two things - the speed and the size of the shred produced. Here’s a look at how modern shredders have come of age in terms of their efficiency:

The top secret type: By definition and by practicality, all of the above mentioned levels of high security shred is achieved using cross cut paper shredders which are the best in the business. When it comes to destroying top secret documents, all across the world, cross cut shredder, is the name that comes to mind.

Deskside & Home use: For purposes where the level of secrecy is not defining, one can use simple home paper shredder that destroys the documents but produces long strips of shreds such as strip cut shredders.

Industrial purposes: For industrial purposes one requires a high capacity paper shredder that can destroy large volumes of documents in one go. Here the intensity of confidentiality may not be high. Industrial conveyor shredder is a good example of this.

Author’s Bio: The author is an avid blogger. He has written about the high level security shred using cross cut paper shredders in this article.