Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The dangers of California's legislation to censor 3D printing

eff.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 491 posts

Re: The dangers of California's legislation to censor 3D printing

#61

Post by NoMoreNicksLeft »

EvanAnderson wrote: post #33
Retr0id wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One practical difference is that you can make dollar bill detection relatively robust. Sure, you could cut it into 4 pieces and scan them separately, but you'd still get stuck when it comes time to print them. There are only finitely many dollar bill shapes. But there are infinitely many plausible gun components, and infinitely more ways to divide them into sub-assemblies.

It would be interesting to test what the minimum detectable piece of US currency is. (I wouldn't want to do it on a network-connected system, though.)

There is a pattern of yellow dots on the currency. I do not know at what size they tile across the paper, but the piece of currency would have to be smaller than that, most likely.

Far easier to dump the firmware and NOOP out that algo.

Re: The dangers of California's legislation to censor 3D printing

#62

Post by captaincrisp »

15155 wrote: post #51
tempaccount5050 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not that I support any of these obviously stupid bills but: > what's special about 3d printers? They can make guns made out of plastic and metal detectors are kind of the primary way we try to find guns on people. You are probably right about the lobbying group, I agree. Edit: I'm not saying it makes sense, but this is the angle the congress folks are taking, sheesh.

> metal detectors are kind of the primary way we try to find guns on people What are bullets and shell casings made out of again?

And importantly the barrel. Plastic cannot contain the pressure required to fire a bullet.

Re: The dangers of California's legislation to censor 3D printing

#63

Post by bmurphy1976 »

simplyluke wrote: post #19

The 3d printer gun legislation has been rearing its head in a bunch of states this year, and generally with very similar patterns. I suspect some of the pro-gun-control groups have been pushing it to lawmakers given most legislation is basically copy-pastes from lobbying groups at both the state and federal level. Colorado, Washington, New York, and now California have all floated legislation attempting to make devic…

LM has a whole series of videos that touches on this (as well as some related topics): https://www.youtube.com/@LoyalMoses/videos

Louis Rossman also touched on the topic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kS-9ISzMhBM

I've seen more by others but can't recall them all. Without going too far down a conspiracy theory rabbit hole, the momentum for this seems to be coming from a variety of sources:

    * New York being New York and trying to make thinking about guns a thought crime
    * There's European company (forget the name) that makes specialized software that can do this.  They're lobbying so they can inject themselves for some tasty rent seeking.
    * A variety of companies that see right-to-repair (and thus home 3D printers, CNC-milling, etc.) a threat to their bottom lines.
    * General ignorance by our law makers
Edit: And I personally think instead of doing stupid bullshit like this, we should be giving EVERY kid who wants one a free 3D Printer so they can learn to tinker, be creative, and build things. That's how we create that spark that leads to the next generation of makers. Without that our country will continue to be the country that can no longer build things.

Re: The dangers of California's legislation to censor 3D printing

#64

Post by mothballed »

convolvatron wrote: post #4
asdff wrote: post #3

Why don't these bills go after ammo or gunpowder access? Seems as long as you have access to a cylinder, and ammunition, you can make a gun.

I don't know the situation with the actual charge, but if you can make a gun, you can certainly make ammunition.

People would probably use smuggled primers if arms were outlawed. The rest of the chemistry is easy enough to work with and the primers are small enough they'd likely flow along with fentanyl with the cartels anyway.

Re: The dangers of California's legislation to censor 3D printing

#65

Post by bmurphy1976 »

krunck wrote: post #57

Lets imagine a similar situation but instead of with an additive manufacturing process they try to regulate a subtractive manufacturing process: a traditional CNC machine. There is no way to prevent the CNC system from machining gun parts as along as the machining is done in discrete steps with the same work piece. The software can't know what sitting on the CNC table. In additive manufacturing it is more difficult b…

Some of these bills are written in such a way that they would apply to CNC manufacturing, such that they could even make building your own machine from scratch illegal. They are terribly oppressive and short-sighted.

Re: The dangers of California's legislation to censor 3D printing

#66

Post by trollbridge »

rolph wrote: post #54
horsawlarway wrote: post #38

Personally, I see this as an assault on 3d printing more than any real attempt to regulate guns. I own several 3d printers. If I wanted to make something resembling a firearm I'd go to home depot WAY before I bothered 3d printing parts. You basically just need a metal tube, and well... a pipe from home depot does that much better than trying to 3d print something much less reliable. So given we don't do this regulati…

whats special is speed and consistency. when you manufacture a personal firearm, it is supposed to be yours, for your use. the 3d printer aspect, makes it possible for a group to print large quantities of receivers, under the radar, to be combined with "accesory parts" close to "drop-in" assembly style.

At issue here is that anyone can build a 3D printer. There's one in my basement a hobbyist built entirely from easily-sourced parts, and the controller is entirely open source. It never phones home and isn't really connected directly to the Internet at all.

Re: The dangers of California's legislation to censor 3D printing

#67

Post by trollbridge »

15155 wrote: post #51
tempaccount5050 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not that I support any of these obviously stupid bills but: > what's special about 3d printers? They can make guns made out of plastic and metal detectors are kind of the primary way we try to find guns on people. You are probably right about the lobbying group, I agree. Edit: I'm not saying it makes sense, but this is the angle the congress folks are taking, sheesh.

> metal detectors are kind of the primary way we try to find guns on people What are bullets and shell casings made out of again?

And I'd argue that shell casings are probably harder to manufacture than a fully working firearm. The equipment needed to manufacture working ammunition end-to-end is pretty serious.

Re: The dangers of California's legislation to censor 3D printing

#68

Post by 15155 »

krunck wrote: post #57

Lets imagine a similar situation but instead of with an additive manufacturing process they try to regulate a subtractive manufacturing process: a traditional CNC machine. There is no way to prevent the CNC system from machining gun parts as along as the machining is done in discrete steps with the same work piece. The software can't know what sitting on the CNC table. In additive manufacturing it is more difficult b…

WA state's legislation includes subtractive methods, CA's omits it so that they don't have to deal with the wrath of Haas.

Re: The dangers of California's legislation to censor 3D printing

#69

Post by dole »

cultofmetatron wrote: post #23
subhobroto wrote: post #8

I don't understand the problem solving mindset that thinks banning guns would solve the problem of a person intent on causing harm. In the U.K., where I feel guns are only showpieces (do even cops have them?), stabbing is a known problem. In India, where ammo is way more expensive than machetes and knives, people are literally murdered with them. The only argument I can understand, when it comes to banning guns, is t…

guns democratize mass murder. With a gun, I can kill a bunch of people before police can stop me. A knife? At best I can kill one or two in a public place before people run away and eventually a different group is going to stop me pretty quickly.

Killers are going to kill. Guns don't democratize it, just makes it easier. Maybe at best YOU could kill one or two:

https://www.cnn.com/2024/11/16/china/china-stabbing-yixing-c... (8 stabbed to death) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chenpeng_Village_Primary_Schoo... (1 killed, 24 injured)

So they should stop you from 3d-printing knives too.

Re: The dangers of California's legislation to censor 3D printing

#70

Post by MisterTea »

qurren wrote: post #56
MisterTea wrote: post #5

> The primary goal is clear and simple: to require 3D printer manufacturers to use a state-certified algorithm that checks digital design files for firearm components and blocks print jobs that would produce prohibited parts. "state-certified algorithm" has a really nice tyrannic ring to it. I am sure once this has passed the rich people can finally sleep at night knowing they are safe from roving gangs of armed Mang…

A 3D printer, at least of the Prusa variety, is really just a bunch of stepper motors and a dumb motor driver executing a series of effectively "rotate by X steps" commands, which is what the gcode file is. It doesn't know what it's printing. It doesn't even know that it's a printer. If they wanted a gate on designs it would have to happen in slicing software, not the actual printer.

Indeed. I grew up in a a machine shop than ran both manual and CNC machines and spent my summers in front of mills and lathes running jobs. I now do industrial automation and machine repair. With that being said, yeah, no way will this work. Ever.

And software? My Bridgeport and Logan were built before computers were available to the home consumer. Good luck stopping someone like me.

Post reply on HN