If you prefer listening to it rather than reading, printcrime was in an Escape Pod Flash piece a few years back...
“Printcrime” by Cory Doctorow
21–30 of 81 posts
Re: “Printcrime” by Cory Doctorow
#22I remembered the story when I was reading the musings of the Australian police about regulating the cad files. As soon as 3d printers will be able to replicate themselves, every regulation will be moot. Information always finds a way to propagate.
> As soon as 3d printers will be able to replicate themselves, every regulation will be moot. I don't get this. In theory, if it were illegal to print "Item #325" having 200 printers doesn't make it any less illegal to print "Item #325". > Information always finds a way to propagate. Doesn't this presuppose that no secret has ever been kept?
Well, the other question is whether it will be legal to manufacture/sell printers which are capable of printing illegal things. If the printers are capable of self-replicating it will be implausible to enforce that sort of regulation.
It is presumably already illegal to 3-D print several types of 3-D things, where such things themselves are illegal or where there is some form of copyright, trademark or patent infringement.
Re: “Printcrime” by Cory Doctorow
#23I remembered the story when I was reading the musings of the Australian police about regulating the cad files. As soon as 3d printers will be able to replicate themselves, every regulation will be moot. Information always finds a way to propagate.
> As soon as 3d printers will be able to replicate themselves, every regulation will be moot. I don't get this. In theory, if it were illegal to print "Item #325" having 200 printers doesn't make it any less illegal to print "Item #325". > Information always finds a way to propagate. Doesn't this presuppose that no secret has ever been kept?
the only secrets are the secrets that keep themselves
Re: “Printcrime” by Cory Doctorow
#24Earlier quoted context omitted.
this kind of reply makes me cringe.. i had a manager once who would do something similar on rare occasions i asked about something he already stated in the past. he'd re-paste it into the chat window (sometimes twice).. as if fostering proof that i must be retarded for missing a nugget of his eternal wisdom. the only thing that kept me alive was collecting such snippets for eventual book or at least a blog post about…
Bosses like that are as valuable as they are unbearable.
People like that help teach the differences among bosses, managers, and leaders.
Re: “Printcrime” by Cory Doctorow
#25A few months ago, I read Cory Doctrow's Makers. Having grown up in Orlando, rat as villain was blissful reading. Earlier this spring, I pulled Little Brother off the shelf at the library. As it happened, my son was just finishing Slaughter House Five: or the Children's Crusade at the very point I realized that he might enjoy its young adult tenor more than I would enjoy finishing it out of obligation.
Ever since Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy's cover in my hand grabbed his attention at the library [following up quickly with a purchased copy of the complete series helped seal the deal] last winter, I've been on a roll for recommending books with him. Player Piano was the only thing close to Hitch-Hiker's Guide I could think of, and his finishing it was how we got to Slaughter-House Five. Indeed, the mentioning of last year's suggestion of Sword of Shannara has been rendered less painful between us by the recent success.
Anyway, he really dug Little Brother. So much so he made sure to take it to middle-school everyday and walk out to the bus stop "reading" it, in the morning. As fortune would have it, the evening of the very day he finished it, I was at the library and what should be on the new fiction rack but Homeland. He finished that, too.
Now one of the questions that comes around on Ask HN is how do I get my child interested in programming, and I don't think you do, really other than perhaps by modeling behavior, and I've said as much from time to time. But, reading Doctorow sparked my son to check out the computer section at the library - that trip was with mom and he came back with an "Intro to turning a computer on" type book. A couple of days later it was in the back-to-the-library stack.
Then about two weeks ago, he asked me if I had a book about Lisp because that was what he had really been looking for at the library. Well of course I did, and he knew it - Graham's Ansi Common Lisp has been floating around the house since I picked it up used from Amazon last August. So a few nights a week he sits and reads and takes notes for a half hour all on his own and in his own way, which is of course the best way to come to any adult activity for a young person.*
*OK so I did Youtube the first part of the first SICP lecture video for him on our way to a soccer tournament a week earlier. Until he fell asleep about 15 minutes in. As he was dozing off, however, we got to the part where Sussman says that what we can program is only limited by what we can imagine. That got him to stop nodding his head.
Re: “Printcrime” by Cory Doctorow
#26So, one wonders--how does anyone who detests the idea of getting arrested for printing things and having printer tech confiscated simultaneously detest the idea of printing weapons with which to defend yourself and your means of production?
Weapons are violence. There's no room for violence in the future.
Re: “Printcrime” by Cory Doctorow
#27This is reminiscent of Gnu's "Right to read". http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html What is the solution if a person uses a printer to print devices that are used for what most people consider criminal behavior? For example, someone printing high performing secret remote detonating bomb materials for political enemy rallies. After they serve the prison sentence. Do you let them own an open source printer a…
Change a few words and see if it still makes sense: what is the solution if a person uses their garage to make things for criminal purposes? If they get out of prison, do you still allow them to have a garage?
Re: “Printcrime” by Cory Doctorow
#28[deleted]
Re: “Printcrime” by Cory Doctorow
#29After "printcrime" there will be: "look-crime" where you are caught peeking into or learning about how the insides of a system work on a base level, so you can replicate it without the backdoors, spyware, government mothership authorizations, credentials, alarms, and limitations. Close that vehicle/system lid citizen, there are trade secrets in there, step away, don't make me Taze you.
After "printcrime" there will be: "look-crime"
And after that, there will be "mind-crime".
Re: “Printcrime” by Cory Doctorow
#30I remembered the story when I was reading the musings of the Australian police about regulating the cad files. As soon as 3d printers will be able to replicate themselves, every regulation will be moot. Information always finds a way to propagate.
Information always finds a way to propagate
There are 1.3 billion people in China who would probably disagree.