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United States Technology

After Court Order, 3D-Printed Gun Pioneer Now Sells Pay-What-You-Want CAD Files (arstechnica.com) 338

CaptainDork writes: In a surprising announcement, Defense Distributed founder Cody Wilson announced Tuesday that while he would continue to comply with a federal court order forbidding him from internationally publishing CAD files of firearms, he would also begin selling copies of his 3D-printed gun files for a "suggested price" of $10 each. The files, crucially, will be transmitted to customers "on a DD-branded flash drive" in the United States and won't be available as downloads.
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After Court Order, 3D-Printed Gun Pioneer Now Sells Pay-What-You-Want CAD Files

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  • by oldgraybeard ( 2939809 ) on Tuesday August 28, 2018 @08:38PM (#57214424)
    Trying to hide knowledge never protected anyone from anything.

    Just my 2 cents ;)
    • Trying to hide knowledge never protected anyone from anything.

      It's prevented terrorists from building and detonating a nuclear bomb.

      There are exceptions to every rule.

      • by PPH ( 736903 )

        It's prevented terrorists from building and detonating a nuclear bomb.

        Not really. Plans for nukes are all over the place. It's the cost of acquiring the rather exotic raw materials needed that has stopped anyone other than nations from building these.

      • by mark-t ( 151149 )
        The only thing keeping bad people from doing that is the difficulty and expense of acquiring certain critical components in sufficient quantity, not the complexity of the task itself. The knowledge is really not that secret.
    • There was this event called “D-Day” that went fairly well due to some information being withheld.

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      Well the knowledge on how to make chemical, biological and nuclear weapons is restricted, but still available if you have enough time and energy to figure it out. How often do we see people go on rampages with those things compared to guns?

      The point here is that restrictions on the knowledge as how to make certain dangerous things is there to set up barriers most people with the will to actually misuse said things can't or won't get over. Today, barring loopholes with practically finished components, you
  • Now maybe he'll be able to pay his lawyers.
    • When I covet something that's "pay what you want," I opt to pay nothing.

      I'm truly shocked that someone else hasn't stepped up to do a hostile takeover in another country.

      Cody wants to be a hub.

      Others would have stolen the idea, but why?

      There's no market here.

  • ... because he's gonna monetize the thing come hell or high water.

    The next step, if any, will be for the Feds and/or states to address the legality of shipping firearms without a license.

    I know that doesn't make any sense, but neither did, "Cody is violating firearm export ..."

    I agree with an article I read that essentially said the the whole fiasco is stupid because people can buy stolen OEM guns off the street for $20-$100 vs buying all the shit needed for 3D printing.

    --

    ON ANOTHER NOTE

    If this guy (or anyo

    • I would think liability would quickly get him. These things are going to kill a lot more tinkerers than they will assailants.

      • I hadn't considered product liability.

        An injury or death could listed as the result of defective code, I guess.

        Cody needs to copy the TOS from Facebook where it says, "We get everything and you get nothing and you will side with us regarding any litigation."

        Another thought:

        Wonder if Cody gonna sell phone numbers and shipping addresses along with email addresses and such to the NRA and Dicks?

    • well with an cdn network it can be local in each state

      • I know that you know that the files exist all over the planet.

        Any future files will be propagated instantly as well, even (or especially) if Cody's site is paywalled.

        There's your CDN.

        I had to look that up.

        I dismissed the Canadian Dairy Network.

        I'm not comfortable that any special topology is necessary for 3D print files.

        The goal [of CDN [wikipedia.org]] is to distribute service spatially relative to end-users to provide high availability and high performance .

    • Re:Clever kid ... (Score:4, Interesting)

      by blindseer ( 891256 ) <blindseer@noSPAm.earthlink.net> on Tuesday August 28, 2018 @09:31PM (#57214614)

      The next step, if any, will be for the Feds and/or states to address the legality of shipping firearms without a license.

      A firearm schematic is no more a firearm than the photo on my driving license is a person.

      I know that doesn't make any sense, but neither did, "Cody is violating firearm export ..."

      The government used a law on the export of militarily valuable information to prevent these files from being posted on the internet. While there are bits of data with significant value for national security this is not one of those bits. They didn't call the schematics a "firearm" but they certainly tried to create some kind of equivalence between a representation of the thing and the thing itself.

  • I want the Barbara Streisand Edition Drive.

  • Just sell DD branded flash drives -- that just happen to have sample CAD files pre-loaded on them.
  • You can't stop computer files on the internet. And the CNC and 3d printers are going ot be everywhere... cheaper every year and better every year.

    It is game over for the old gun control regime.

    It isn't going to just break down in the US... it is going to break down in France... England... Japan... China... everywhere.

  • by imidan ( 559239 ) on Tuesday August 28, 2018 @10:51PM (#57214988)
    I don't believe that home-printed plastic zip guns are a threat anywhere outside of spy novels or Jack Bauer world. They are just not a thing we really need to worry about: there are so many problems with them, and so many alternatives, that they are not a likely effective attack vector.
    1. They are likely to misfire or explode
    2. Even when they work, they rarely work more than once
    3. Even though they are printed from plastic, they still require metal parts (like the striker spring)
    4. They may or may not trip a metal detector, but they will be perfectly visible in our baggage screening equipment today
    5. They still require bullets, which are dense, metallic, and may carry residues that are detectable by swabbing
    6. Buying a high-enough-quality 3D printer with feedstock to print a plastic zip gun costs more than just buying an inexpensive but reliable semi automatic pistol
    7. Buy a gun at a gun store--most of our high-profile gun violence in this country is perpetrated by people who bought their guns legally
    8. Buy a gun from a private party--no background check required
    9. If terrorists wanted to smuggle guns onto an airplane, they could go to the bother of making a bunch of crappy zip guns, or they could just rely on the 95% failure rate of the TSA to even notice contraband in luggage and send a bunch of guys onto planes with store-bought pistols--at least some are likely to succeed
    10. A person with knowledge and equipment for machining could produce a much higher-quality, more effective weapon
    11. It's possible today to buy the pieces of a gun and assemble them yourself at home, with one part requiring some finishing on your part--making homemade guns even easier than 3D printed guns
    12. Forget about making a homemade one-shot pistol, make bombs out of pressure cookers and dynamite, or pipes and gunpowder, or big trucks and fertilizer (NSA, please do not put me on a list for this, these are just things people have done)
    13. I could keep adding to this list almost indefinitely

    There are so many actual, real threats that we face in our country. Plastic zip guns are not one of them. We don't need to worry about banning them. People who make them will blow off their own fingers and realize it was a bad idea. Nobody else will care.

    • Yeah it is one of those things where you can see why it would worry people, but it is pretty silly when there are places online that'll tell you how to mod a relatively easy to acquire AR15. No one is going to storm a federal armory with 3D printed weapons when perfectly legal and effective WWII era combat rifles are relegated to target shooting and the occasional deer. Now if they start 3D printing Predator drones and cruise missiles en masse then we'll have a stickier wicket.
  • The files, crucially, will be transmitted to customers "on a DD-branded flash drive"

    Woot, infinite free flash drives!

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