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Setting aside legality and technical issues for a second, in some respects this seems similar to regular printing of currency bills: I find it very likely that

by giech 12y ago

Setting aside legality and technical issues for a second, in some respects this seems similar to regular printing of currency bills: I find it very likely that the (any?) government would require that 3D printers refuse to print "crucial" parts of a weapon either at the software or at the firmware level. Of course, with the more DIY and open nature of 3D printers this might be difficult to enforce, but not impossible, at least for the average user.

MichaelGG 12y ago
Currency blocking is fairly straightforward though. A banned set of images, perhaps some blocked color values or whatnot. But there's a huge space of possible gun designs. Don't we need a large advance in technology to be able to determine something is a gun? Especially if we don't accept a lot of false positives?
DrStalker 12y ago
Special features in currency make it relatively easy the detect when an image is of currency; there's no such equivalent for detecting weapon parts and even if there was you could just 3D print a version lacking those features since your goal isn't forgery, it's functionality.
wongarsu 12y ago
With the small difference that printing currency bills can be made very hard for individuals. A regular Euro note is made of special paper, has raised print, a watermark, a security thread, a hologram, micro-perforations, colour-changing numbers, microprint and magnetic ink. You can't make mashining an assault rifle out of a block of metal artificially harder as tools get better.
- giech 12y ago
  That's not what I was referring to though. I was talking about how detecting the EURion constellation causes Photoshop and printers to not work. I do not know how guns are manufactured, but from the comments in this and earlier discussions of the story, I assumed that there are parts with common characteristics. As a result, and unless the resulting 3D models are too many, or if they would result in false positives with legitimate applications, you could require that 3D printers and CAD software refuse to work with them. Based on the couple of comments below, however, it seems that my assumption that there is a sufficiently common part among firearms is wrong, so I'll leave further comments to the experts.
vectorjohn 12y ago
Besides the other points people have made, there's another reason printing currency is different than guns. You have to spend money somewhere for it to be useful. With guns, nobody has to accept being shot, they just are. Another thing is there is no possible way this could be enforced before strong AI that can recognize a functioning gun somehow.

by giech 12y ago

MichaelGG 12y ago

Currency blocking is fairly straightforward though. A banned set of images, perhaps some blocked color values or whatnot. But there's a huge space of possible gun designs. Don't we need a large advance in technology to be able to determine something is a gun? Especially if we don't accept a lot of false positives?

DrStalker 12y ago

Special features in currency make it relatively easy the detect when an image is of currency; there's no such equivalent for detecting weapon parts and even if there was you could just 3D print a version lacking those features since your goal isn't forgery, it's functionality.

wongarsu 12y ago

With the small difference that printing currency bills can be made very hard for individuals. A regular Euro note is made of special paper, has raised print, a watermark, a security thread, a hologram, micro-perforations, colour-changing numbers, microprint and magnetic ink. You can't make mashining an assault rifle out of a block of metal artificially harder as tools get better.

giech 12y ago
That's not what I was referring to though. I was talking about how detecting the EURion constellation causes Photoshop and printers to not work. I do not know how guns are manufactured, but from the comments in this and earlier discussions of the story, I assumed that there are parts with common characteristics. As a result, and unless the resulting 3D models are too many, or if they would result in false positives with legitimate applications, you could require that 3D printers and CAD software refuse to work with them. Based on the couple of comments below, however, it seems that my assumption that there is a sufficiently common part among firearms is wrong, so I'll leave further comments to the experts.

vectorjohn 12y ago

Besides the other points people have made, there's another reason printing currency is different than guns. You have to spend money somewhere for it to be useful. With guns, nobody has to accept being shot, they just are. Another thing is there is no possible way this could be enforced before strong AI that can recognize a functioning gun somehow.