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State Department Demands 3-D Gun Blueprints Be Removed
- mindcrime 13y agoDear State Department: How well has trying to remove content from the Internet worked out for you in past? Also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect Thanks, Mindcrime
- fixxer 13y agojinx!
- fixxer 13y agoStreisand effect... bad move State, bad move.
- sargun 13y agoI would like them to see the Streisand Effect: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect By issuing a takedown notice to the maintainer of the blueprint, it's very unlikely that they're going to stop the flow of information. Additionally, it turns out it's probably not effective to stop them from distributing the blueprints now that they're already on the internet. We're probably not going to see a massive number of these come into existence because the printers aren't exactly a commodity yet. I imagine the people who own these printers, and the printing services will notice what's being printed, and that's probably the best place to control these.
- pacaro 13y agoI see your Streisand and raise you one Darknet... "The idea of the darknet is based upon three assumptions: 1) Any widely distributed object will be available to a fraction of users in a form that permits copying. 2) Users will copy objects if it is possible and interesting to do so. 3) Users are connected by high-bandwidth channels. The darknet is the distribution network that emerges from the injection of objects according to assumption 1 and the distribution of those objects according to assumptions 2 and 3." See "The Darknet and the Future of Content Distribution" - http://msl1.mit.edu/ESD10/docs/darknet5.pdf http://msl1.mit.edu/ESD10/docs/darknet5.pdf
- kybernetikos 13y agoI doubt the general effectiveness of the Streisand effect, since it seems like exactly the kind of thing that would be subject to selection bias: the examples of people trying to stop the spread of information that you know of are of course mainly those where it failed. That you can name many more examples of it failing doesn't mean that there aren't lots of examples of it working that you have no way of knowing about.
- jlgreco 13y agoFrom what I have read of Cody, this is exactly the sort of reaction he was hoping to receive. Perhaps he should have had the CAD file printed and bound as a book... Edit: Nevermind, he's already ahead of me: "Wilson argues his activities are legit, because ITAR doesn’t apply to information sold in a library, and conveniently has his being sold in an undisclosed Austin, Texas, bookstore."
- cinquemb 13y agoAlso the reaction expected from anyone who understands that the state will do anything to protect its hegemony, regardless of whether its actions will actually be effective or not (as many citizens in many countries know all too well what they get away with on a daily basis despite or in ignorance of written laws). With predictable actors, it's hard not make it work to one's advantage.
- tantalor 13y agohttp://www.fas.org/spp/starwars/offdocs/itar/p120.htm#P120 http://www.fas.org/spp/starwars/offdocs/itar/p120.htm#P120 Let's break it down, ITAR defines export as transferring an article or technical data (§ 120.7). Technical data, by definition, is not in the public domain (§ 120.10.5). DEFCAD claims the files are in the public domain, i.e., available in bookstores (§ 120.11.1) and libraries open to the public (§ 120.11.4). So they cannot qualify as technical data to satisfy the export requirement.
- dillona 13y agoIt would be easy enough to set up a server to block non-US IPs. Would that be sufficient to get around ITAR? I wonder what would happen then
- mbillie1 13y agoAs colechristensen said, IP is not adequate identification. Anyone with time to kill can proxy themselves into a US IP.
- colechristensen 13y agoNo. There are plenty of Non-US Persons (people without greencards or citizenship) in the U.S. and IP is not adequate identification anyway.
- rkuykendall-com 13y agoYou're right. Luckily, the porn industry already has this covered. ARE YOU A US CITIZEN? [YES] [NO]
- Game_Ender 13y agoThere is no formal list of procedures you need to protect ITAR information. You need to use something like "standard security procedures" to keep the information away from foreigners. What this means in practice is you consult your organizations lawyers, draft a policy, and follow it to the letter so you don't go to jail. You personally are liable (jail time and fines) if the information leaks out. Having an approved policy that you are following is really the only protection.
- ics 13y agoWho'da thunk it, the Pirate Bay now has a Physibles category! Can anyone guess which files are currently trending? https://thepiratebay.sx/search/defcad/0/99/0 https://thepiratebay.sx/search/defcad/0/99/0
- hayksaakian 13y ago1391 seeds, 109 peers at time of writing
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- AdamTReineke 13y agoWould a US citizen seeding this file to a foreign peer potentially violate export rules and be at risk of major legal trouble if the US gov went down that road?
- adastra 13y agoAbsolutely yes this is a risk. Do not do this. The International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) is not something you want to mess with.
- angersock 13y agoYeah, no idea why you're being downvoted--you make a fair point. Like, this is annoying, but all of the secondary actors seeding and whatnot here are provably and knowingly infringing on ITAR. I don't agree with what's being done by the .gov here, and I don't think it's a good thing, but especially given how we see the courts behave and how we see the confrontational system run, I must remind our overzealous peers here who wish to antagonize the .gov: Do not taunt happy fun ball.
- tlrobinson 13y agoHeh, after the defcad files there's "Guy Fawkes and Anonymous mask".
- tks2103 13y agopeople will likely be able to cheaply manufacture guns on private property very soon. is this a problem?
- duncan_bayne 13y agoThis isn't a problem, and it isn't a new thing either: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Improvised_firearm https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Improvised_firearm
- tks2103 13y agodo you think 3d printers will not significantly reduce the complexity of creating a firearm for the average citizen?
- jlgreco 13y agoI would wager that right now, in the US, there are more people that know how to use CNC machines and have access to one than people who know how to use 3d printers and have access to one. Consider that damn near every mid-sized shop these days has a CNC machine, while 3d printers are still very much a hobbyist's toy (your regular Joe can always pop down to the local hackerspace to get access to one, but I doubt many hackerspaces would be amused at regular Joe printing out his own Liberator. I would expect to see more leeway given to people who work in shops with CNC machines though, mostly due to the lower visibility). With any luck 3d printers will become more ubiquitous in the next few years, and this will all clearly be no longer the case.
- MichaelSalib 13y agoNo. 3d printers that people can afford can only produce garbage guns. 3d printers that professionals use (i.e., that cost tends of thousands of dollars) can produce slightly less crappy guns. In either case, you end up with a product that is substantially lower quality that mass-manufactured equivalents and costs substantially more. What kind of idiot would pay more money for a lower quality product that could easily blow up in your hand severely injuring you? I mean, it is not like there's a shortage of mass-manufactured firearms.
- iterion1 13y agoSo, this attracts the ire of the state department. Yet, something like this (http://aresarmor.com/store/Item/TACMHL15 http://aresarmor.com/store/Item/TACMHL15) is actually approved by the ATF as not being a firearm. You just need some basic machining skills (thanks MIT OpenCourseWare) and access to basic tools (thanks local hackerspace) to have a fully operational AR-15 which does not need to be registered. Seriously?
- msandford 13y agoWhy should the law make sense? It's a bunch of arbitrary rules put in place via largely reactionary pressure. If you don't refactor code occasionally you end up with weird corner cases that don't make any sense. The laws of our nation haven't been refactored in any substantial way, ever. It's patches all the way down to the Constitution.
- mbillie1 13y agoHalf-baked, untested production patches at that.
- ahallock 13y agoExactly. And that's the point and design. With a convoluted system in place, seemingly peaceful activities can land you in prison, or bankrupt you with legal fees. I only see the entropy accelerating.
- msandford 13y agoYep and it'll destroy the American empire. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Tainter#Social_complexity http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Tainter#Social_complexit...
- malexw 13y ago"You just need some basic machining skills (thanks MIT OpenCourseWare)" I wish I could learn this kind of stuff from OCW. There's some text descriptions of how lathes and milling machine work in one of their courses (http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/mechanical-engineering/2-670-mechanical-engineering-tools-january-iap-2004/ http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/mechanical-engineering/2-670-mech...), but not enough to make me comfortable with either tool. I've been looking for a place around my city (Toronto) where I could take a weekend or evening classes about machining skills, but haven't had much luck. So, I think you're underestimating the difficultly of getting basic machining skills in our post-industrial society. Though I agree with your main point.
- GigabyteCoin 13y agoIn other news, the State Department has absolutely no idea how the internet works.
- mbillie1 13y agoWhile I'm not super excited about people printing 3D guns, it seems like it's probably still cheaper to buy an illegal gun than it is to buy a 3D printer with the material to print a functioning firearm (last I checked 3D printers were still ~$500+; and even legal guns can be as cheap as ~$100)... I'm not sure that this publicized letter helps the situation any. There is the interesting topic of "gun legislation" as well... once any individual can manufacture Thing X, how do you (or do you?) legislate control of it? It would be great if the first major, widespread, TPB-distributed 3D printed-thing was something less controversial, but such is life. There are people in jail for "hacking" and a huge variety of other issues, while one can apparently print guns without any legal ramifications. I am not saying that one is better or worse than the other - just drawing attention to how poor our legislative process is when it comes to handling _any_ technological advances whatsoever.
- derefr 13y agoThe question might be more about marginal cost. What would it cost a militia to outfit themselves with a thousand illegal guns, versus the material and power to print a thousand guns? If printing is cheaper, how much more likely does this make the creation of militias?
- mbillie1 13y agoI would much rather there be no 3D-gun-printing situation... but I'm not sure that I'm too concerned about militias, albeit only given the current state of 3D printers. There's a weird race between the capacity to manufacture anything at any time, and the ability to harvest sufficient energy to make the former not-so-important... and the former is in front right now. That is for sure a kind of scary thought. Plastic-gun-toting militias are probably not a big deal right now, but yeah... what if 3D metal printers become as prevalent as mobile phones? Hopefully some balancing technology will have also become so prevalent. If not, there are companies that make amazing tents, and there are lots of mountains and woods... :)
- toomuchtodo 13y agoIf you're a militia, you're going to purchase a laser sintering printer. What then? Restrict the purchase of metal powder?
- steve19 13y agoIt is not that they don't understand how the internet works, but legally you cannot export blueprints about weapons without an export license. The State Department is absolutely correct. Blueprints of weapons cannot be exported. Everyone in the firearm/defense industry knows this. The ITAR rules are even worse for some types of equipment. For example it is a felony to allow a foreigners (non-citizens or non-green card holders) to look through high-end (Gen III) night vision equipment. Guns shops all over the country unwittingly violate this rule every day. Technical discussions of night vision equipment on a forums accessible from foreigners is also illegal. Edit: Also worth pointing out that those model files are also being hosted on GitHub [0] [0] https://github.com/maduce/defcad-repo https://github.com/maduce/defcad-repo
- glenra 13y ago> legally you cannot export blueprints about weapons without an export license. Wow. That seems incredibly stupid. How did this manage to survive first amendment challenges? Or has it not been tested?
- nness 13y agoMy knowledge is quite basic on the subject, but how would this be a first amendment issue?
- hawleyal 13y agoHow is censorship of speech a violation of freedom of speech? AYFKM
- tks2103 13y agodon't beg the question. there's no need for cursing.
- hawleyal 13y agoThat is not what "beg the question" means. Begging the question refers to a form of argument in which the final conclusion was earlier presented as a given. That is, a circular argument. I restated the question, to highlight the absurdity of it. That is not begging the question.
- sage_joch 13y agoThis is the beginning of a much longer roller coaster. It opens the door to a public demand for more surveillance, and debate over what kinds of data are allowed to exist.
- cpursley 13y agoWell, the State Department can go <bold>fuck</bold> themselves.
- giardini 13y agoWhy would anyone respond to a request from the State Department to remove plans for a 3-D gun? What jurisdictional claim and standing does SD have here? I see none. And this is an old technology firearm created with a new technology printing device. Plans for firearms are all over the internet. What makes this one fall under SD rule?
- aspensmonster 13y agoI'd be more concerned about recently stolen state-of-the-art technology taking an early one-way flight westward on a thumb drive than I'd be about a plastic single-shot gun (that apparently isn't even stable; from what I've heard the thing has exploded before in testing). As others have said, producing weapons independently has been happening for ages; the processes and technology for pushing pieces of metal out of tubes at high speeds aren't overly complicated. Unregistered guns are still obtainable even if you can't hack one together yourself. But this isn't the first time ITAR has been abused. Can you say strong cryptography?
- swamp40 13y ago3D guns are 99% useless, but 101% provocative in the current political environment. There are 350 million real, fully functional, STEEL barreled firearms in the US today. The epitome of 750 years of tweaks and improvements. SURELY one of those would be easier to obtain (and safer to fire)if you wanted a gun.
- lololomg 13y ago... for now
- chris_mahan 13y agoIf the gun is a one-shot gun, could the gun not include a bullet also, as well as a receptacle for gunpowder? Could a 100% plastic gun with plastic bullet be lethal up close? Could one place the gunpowder during printing and seal it? Could the gunpowder be ignited by static electricity for firing the gun? Answer these questions and metal detectors become useless.
- nsxwolf 13y agoThere is the possibility of manufacturing caseless ammo. An exotic replacement for the firing pin isn't strictly necessary. A firing pin is too small to activate a metal detector. At least, the government thinks so, because guns are required to contain a minimum amount of metal for this purpose. The current stories are neglecting to mention this, but an earlier Forbes article reported that the Liberator contains a 6 ounce piece of steel to remain compliant with the law on undetectable firearms.
- chris_mahan 13y agothis assumes the law in the US, but there are many other countries, assuming one would want to stay within the law as well.
- leephillips 13y agoI will be lazy and ask here instead of looking it up: Is the barrel 3D-printed too? Out of what material? I'm having trouble accepting the idea that a 3D-printed barrel can withstand the pressure of firing normal ammunition.
- jlgreco 13y ago> Is the barrel 3D-printed too? Out of what material? Yes, and plastic. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=drPz6n6UXQY http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=drPz6n6UXQY
- olympus 13y agoYup, barrel is printed as well. Entire gun is ABS plastic, which sounds absurd until you realize that it's only a .22 being fired through it, and it's only intended to be used for one shot. This round is so weak that it's explosive charge is comparable to the primer charge on other rounds. Only two things aren't printed, the firing pin (which is a nail), and an additional hunk of metal that goes in it so it will be detectable with a metal detector (there are other laws against "stealth" weapons that have no metal in them).
- steve-howard 13y agoI was going to say, I think the last place I read about plastic firearms was in a Robert Ludlum novel (spy-thriller type stuff). Though if the "additional hunk of metal" is optional and included for plausible legality, I can see there being some political blowback regardless.
- olympus 13y agoYeah, If you have any experience with creating your own 3D CAD files for printing it would be trivial to go into files yourself and fill in the void for the metal. I doubt it would have a significant impact on the gun's performance. While I can't see this particular model being used as as spy weapon, the potential is certainly there as the technology improves.
- salman89 13y agoThis is an issue of disruption that can cause a large, politically entrenched gun market to fail being disguised as a gun control issue. What steps need to be taken so that we can legally possess a 3D printed gun?
- maratd 13y ago> What steps need to be taken so that we can legally possess a 3D printed gun? None. It's perfectly legal in all states at the moment. What we need to do is protect the status quo. There are clowns in New York and at the federal level who are already talking about banning 3D printed guns.
- freddealmeida 13y agoHas ITAR been challenged under the 1st Amendment?
- korethr 13y agoThis xkcd seems appropriate: http://xkcd.com/504/ http://xkcd.com/504/
- robomartin 13y agoI think everyone is failing to point out the sheer futility of this action based on the most fundamental of human traits: Our ability to solve problems creatively and make things. I would be utterly stunned if 75% to 95% of mechanical engineers --anywhere in the world-- could not, given the task, design such a gun from scratch. I am not a mechanical engineer and I am 100% confident I could, if interested enough, do a good job of it (I rock at Solidworks and CNC). This is one of those "you can't un-ring a bell" moments. The design is out and tons of people could design it all over again from first principles. Not sure what the government accomplished other than to make these files --and the general idea of a 3D printed gun-- really popular overnight.
- jrockway 13y agoThis reminds me of cryptography export in the 1990s. The government's case did not hold up in court and now you can write as much as you want about cryptography.
- ChuckMcM 13y agoOf course the short hairs here are that Cody has an FFL and they can revoke that in a heartbeat for pretty much any reason. Way back in the cypherpunk days (when 'strong' crypto was a weapon) there was a thought experiment to have someone cross into the US illegally, then tattoo on their skin the code that implemented the RSA algorithm, and then turn themselves in to be deported, thus inducing a violation by the INS. I don't think it went anywhere, the other idea was a billboard in the US with the code on it you could read while standing in Mexico (this would work for Canada as well). But poking fun aside, much of the same issues that arose with that effort are in this new 'threat'. The key here is the 3D printer, next up they will be a restricted export item like really nice machine tools.
- glenra 13y agoNowadays you could paint the algorithm on the side of a wall near a road and wait for Google streetview to pick it up or paint it really big on a paved area and wait for Google Earth to pick it up.