US Government Takes Down 3D Printed Gun Plans

http://on3dprinting.com/2013/05/09/us-govt-takes-down-3d-printed-gun-plans/

by on3dprinting • 13 years ago

113 173 13 years ago

on3dprinting.com

cdvonstinkpot• 13 years ago

They're on The Pirate Bay from what I understand, so its a little too late for that now...

__david__• 13 years ago

In particular,

magnet:?xt=urn:btih:0ad7b4f1833e01a3f2fa5613d8fc46de622339ac&dn=DefDist+Defcad+Liberator+Printable+Gun

zackelan2• 13 years ago

Streisand Effect powers, ACTIVATE!

magnet:?xt=urn:btih:6a991291e4c22d379e814be8b4d44f110ac7d1df&dn=DefDist+Defcad.org+AR-15+Lower+Receiver+V5

magnet:?xt=urn:btih:1c012de81d94330055acce53f46602e7b510b46c&dn=defcad-repo-master-2013-05-08.zip

magnet:?xt=urn:btih:0ad7b4f1833e01a3f2fa5613d8fc46de622339ac&dn=DefDist+Defcad+Liberator+Printable+Gun

magnet:?xt=urn:btih:c862f0d031e575384acc6bacc2be7d705666d5bf&dn=DefDist+DEFCAD+MEGA+PACK+v4.2+%28Saito%29

magnet:?xt=urn:btih:c37772020eab135e67aac243fb52e750f210a25c&dn=DefDist+DEFCAD+MEGA+PACK+v4.1+%28Carothers%29

magnet:?xt=urn:btih:0f5f7f0a3e5a3e29b56868e19b60f0fe49c17474&dn=DefDist_DEFCAD_MEGA_PACK_v3.3

magnet:?xt=urn:btih:2e26ad5ad4e0f3c7638b41daaaba3aba42b7eadc&dn=3D+gun+print+DEFCAD+MEGA+PACK+v3+with+updates+zip

I don't have a 3D printer, and really, really don't care whether or not you can print a gun using one. But try to censor information about it, and I'll mirror it on my seedbox for as long as I can, just to piss you off.

They can't stop the signal.

mbreese4• 13 years ago

And you thought that the MPAA tracking torrents was bad... now not only are you seeding potential copyright infringement (I don't know what the license actually is), but you might now also be circumventing arms control laws. That is a whole level of legal hurt that I'd rather avoid.

You might not be able to stop the signal, but I'm pretty sure Mr. Universe still died at the end of Serenity.

mbreese4• 13 years ago

If your goal is to stop the spread of the data, perhaps... but if you are caught with one of these guns now, you might also be prosecuted under arms control/export laws.

tlrobinson• 13 years ago

I believe it's legal to manufacture guns (that would normally be legal) for personal use in the United States without any permit or license or anything.

Also they're not saying the data is illegal, it just may be illegal to "export".

indrax• 13 years ago

http://www.scribd.com/doc/140471313/Letter-from-Department-o...

The letter references a number of items besides the printable gun, including "125mm BK-14M high-explosive anti-tank warhead" Which sounds rather closer to matching the intent of the munitions export regulations.

fleitz2• 13 years ago

It's just another file on the defcad site, usual government confusion around files hosted on the internet.

You can pick up most of what you need to know about anti-tank warheads from a Tom Clancy book, or any library book about shaped charges.

For most people an anti-tank warhead is going to be useless in the context of how to disable a tank.

srathi• 13 years ago

+1 for the Tom Clancy reference.

cynwoody2• 13 years ago

Or just surf to the Wikipedia if you are too lazy to go the library. Example:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Explosively_formed_penetrator

Of course, perusing the above link, it would seem the main limitation on proliferation is chemical synthesis of the HE, not 3D printing technology.

tomjen32• 13 years ago

Can you expand on your last sentence?

smsm4220• 13 years ago

Do you really think you can have functioning anti-tank warhead 3d-printed out of plastic?

bprater• 13 years ago

It's just data. Good luck vacuuming it up from every crack of the Internet.

jobu• 13 years ago

I thought the government would understand The Streisand Effect by now.

omegant• 13 years ago

Yep I really think that the printed gun is lame, but now that it is forbidden I want that file! Just for the sake of being able to get it. I don't own a 3d printer yet, and I would never fire from a plastic barrel, ever (unless plastic technology changes quite a lot, which is probable)

JohnGB• 13 years ago

I suddenly have an urge to make one that I never had before...

vxNsr• 13 years ago

Wow, this is unbelieveable...

I didn't realize they had this power, or that they'd exercise it like that... it's just scary to think that the internet is not as free or open as it feels or appears.

Schlaefer2• 13 years ago

This is nothing new, only the newly digitized weapon de jour is changing. Remember back in the nineties when exporting encryption was the hot topic: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pretty_Good_Privacy#Criminal_in...

shitlord2• 13 years ago

The only actual difference being that cryptography never killed anyone...

mtgx• 13 years ago

Was it on a .com domain? Because they've had the power to take those down for a few years now.

cynwoody2• 13 years ago

I found it on a certain .nz domain[1], the owner of which (who, oddly enough, renamed himself after the TLD you mention) is currently thumbing his nose at the USG[2].

[1] https://mega.co.nz/#!JplQVDDQ!Qi8kflIn8kMZl0hK96YW1h7RIc9vz2...

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kim_Dotcom

Shivetya• 13 years ago

Typically they only have the power until a court intervenes. What they do is rely on the fact that many sites they take down or information they have removed stay that way as the operators cannot afford to the court costs. That and they will rely at times on public sympathy by using known "concerned groups" who are nothing more than fronts for various politicians.

kamkazemoose• 13 years ago

This makes me wonder what kind of regulations the 3d printing industry will face. It makes me wonder if 3d printer software might be forced to not print pieces it recognizes as a gun similar to how ink printers won't print images of money. Or some other restrictions on printing It seems unlikely that the government will be happy with people printing anything they want.

vidarh2• 13 years ago

The problem is the range of projects aimed at making 3D-printers that can replicate the parts for itself. Any restrictions will see people designing plans for innocent looking components that can be used to assemble a restriction-free 3D-printer. It's a losing proposition to try to restrict this. They may succeed at delaying widescale adoption for a while, but not much more.

antihero• 13 years ago

People will just hack the firmware as with every device ever made. They'll have to make it a crime to use a 3D printer with the intent of creating a firearm, but who's going to give a shit?

nostromo• 13 years ago

"While I am as impressed as anyone with 3-D printing technology and I believe it has amazing possibilities," said California state senator Leland Yee (D-San Francisco/San Mateo), "we must ensure that it is not used for the wrong purpose with potentially deadly consequences. I plan to introduce legislation that will ensure public safety and stop the manufacturing of guns that are invisible to metal detectors and that can be easily made without a background check."

Why are even bay area politicians so completely dumb about tech. Why can't we get a Jared Polis?

tiredofcareer• 13 years ago

Oh, he's savvy on tech. Just not the way you want him to be.

Leland Yee is a heavy, outspoken critic of the ESRB and was one of the most vocal politicians during the "Hot Coffee" debacle. Not a fan of video games.

huhtenberg4• 13 years ago

What would be a better way to handle this situation?

(edit) I'm not saying that this is the best option. The government is tasked with ensuring public safety and this is an issue with major public safety repercussions. They cannot just sit and watch this unfold, and what this guy said is basically the most obvious way of dealing with the situation.

michaelfeathers• 13 years ago

Reconciling themselves to the inevitable, perhaps? That is too much to expect from any government, however.

smsm4220• 13 years ago

It is not. Nobody was threatened with this, nobody will ever be threatened with this. This thing is un-concealable and unusable as a real-life weapon in any public safety scenario. If you think anybody with this prototype can threaten public safety you are badly mistaken.

The idea that any time anything new happens the government should jump in and prohibit it until it is proven safe is exactly why politicians like this thrive. Instead, people should use their brains and let the government intervene only when actual threat is there, not theoretical lets-cover-our-asses invented threat is touted by politicians.

andyjohnson0• 13 years ago

Are you saying he's dumb for wanting to restrict gun fabrication , or dumb for thinking that legislation will work when the information is already on the net?

smsm4220• 13 years ago

Can I have both please?

madaxe• 13 years ago

"I will ensure we stamp out and remove those things that we can't detect that can be made with off-the-shelf goods."

Uh huh.

smsm4220• 13 years ago

Because people vote for them. People like politicians that say words like "common sense measures" and "ensure public safety" while taking away rights and freedoms. Who needs those rights and freedoms anyway? Think of the children!

If you think Bay Area people smarter in this regard that any other people, you have to only look up what politicians are doing with budgets, local regulations, pensions, public welfare, public transportation, etc. around Bay Area and you'd see that knowing tech is not the only area politicians are failing.

temphn• 13 years ago

Don't usually link to Reddit, but this is worthy of note. In a thread with 3600 comments and 3000+ upvotes was the following exchange:

http://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/1e0ybl/3d_gun_bl...

  I'm sorry, I seem to have stumbled into bizarro-reddit. On 
  that other reddit they want to ban guns completely.

  No, what's happening is that the government just made 
  reddit choose between guns or the internet. Guess which 
  reddit chose?

The US government is run by people who just don't understand the internet.

hga19• 13 years ago

"stop the manufacturing of guns that are invisible to metal detectors"

Hate to interject a fact here, but this is one of many reasons RKBA types don't respect gun grabbers: their gross ignorance, of which Yee is a choice example. There's already a Federal Undetectable Firearms Act (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Undetectable_Firearms_Act_of_19...):

"The Undetectable Firearms Act of 1988 (Pub.L. 100–649, H.R. 4445, 102 Stat. 3816, enacted November 10, 1988) makes it illegal to manufacture, import, sell, ship, deliver, possess, transfer, or receive any firearm that is not detectable by walk-through metal detectors or has major components that do not generate an accurate image when subjected to inspection by airport x-ray machines."

ADDED: and I've read the design includes a metal insert to satisfy this law.

downandout• 13 years ago

"Folks, lets have us a book burnin!" said Obama. Fortunately, it's not 1960 and the information they seek to control is already out and cannot be controlled. The fact that the government would even bother taking it down in an era of torrent networks exemplifies their extreme ignorance of the world we live in.

msgilligan• 13 years ago

$100 to the first person that can encode the plans on a t-shirt (but you have to send me a shirt)

jacquesm• 13 years ago

Does a tinyurl link to a torrent count?

Create• 13 years ago

Assuming your size is XXL and can read the fine print

http://ollydbg.de/Paperbak/

jayrobin• 13 years ago

A QR code can store 2,953 bytes. If you were just encoding compressed vertex data it might be enough (depending on the complexity of the model - I haven't seen it myself).

digitalengineer• 13 years ago

(Parts of) weapons is just the beginning. After the Music and Film industry, will we now see the manufacturing industry go after individuals sharing 3D maps of 'their' content?

dsrguru• 13 years ago

Looks like I wasn't far off... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5661443

redthrowaway• 13 years ago

Meanwhile, I grabbed it off TPB and, judging by the number of seeds, was hardly the first to think of doing so. Why the USG thinks it can put the cat back in the bag is beyond me.

hoi• 13 years ago

they're adding hurdles, the more friction involved in the process the lower the conversion rate for the amount of people who will have the template.

vidarh2• 13 years ago

Except that's not how it works with this. They've now incentivised a lot of people who'd never, ever care to download it just because it's been taken down, and brought massively more attention to it.

confluence• 13 years ago

People do realise that improvised firearms are actually nothing new right? They've been around for ages - indeed 3D printed versions are vastly inferior to their machine shop counter parts which have been used quite effectively in the past for various political and gang related assassinations.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Improvised_firearm

They should probably ban flash lights as well.

gjulianm4• 13 years ago

But that's not the same. Printing a 3D gun is relatively easy: download the design, print it, and that's it (more or less). With an improvised firearm, you have to search the design, get the materials, build it, and unless you're experienced the gun probably won't work.

For me, it's like saying "we should not control gunpowder sales because you can make gunpowder at home". Silly example, I know, but you get my point.

smsm4220• 13 years ago

You realize you just described the same process twice, only in different terms to appeal to different emotions?

It's not like 3d-printed gun does not require design, does not need materials, does not require assembly and is guaranteed to work.

And yes, controlling sale of basic chemicals on the premise that this somehow prevents criminals from using them for their nefarious goals is silly. The US government does it right now with drugs and it is failing spectacularly, only guys they make trouble to are amateur chemists that have nothing to do with drugs. Same will happen with guns.

ck2• 13 years ago

What's going to be hilarious is when the NRA works against homemade guns because they don't actually represent gun owners but gun manufacturers and people finally start getting the point of lobbyists.

Going to get some popcorn and watch y'all fight each other over who gets to have the most toys to accidentally kill their friends and family with.

duncan_bayne• 13 years ago

Can I just upvote the first line of your reply?

lucian1900• 13 years ago

Surely you can appreciate that most of the world considers the American obsession with guns absurd :)

Most countries have strict gun laws and the people are fine with that. Banning 3D gun models is still stupid though, especially in a country with such high gun availability.

shitlord2• 13 years ago

> Going to get some popcorn and watch y'all fight each other over who gets to have the most toys to accidentally kill their friends and family with.

Yup, that's what these threads inevitably turn into. For some not-so-odd reason, they are really good at making opinionated people come out of the woodwork.

Turing_Machine• 13 years ago

"because they don't actually represent gun owners but gun manufacturers"

And your evidence for this would be?

Be specific.

hga19• 13 years ago

Yeah, right, 5 million people belong to the NRA because they represent the interests of others. (ADDED: including my father, my oldest nephew, my brothers and myself.)

No, the National Shooting Sports Foundation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Shooting_Sports_Founda...) is the "national trade association for the firearms industry that is based in Newtown, Connecticut in the United States. Formed in 1961, the organization has more than 7,000 members: firearms manufacturers, distributors, retailers, shooting ranges, sportsmen's clubs and media."

Here's the most recent thread where I brought this up: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5662183

Note also this comment of mine: "[...] no gun or ammo manufactures rather obviously means no guns and ammo for us to shoot. We've very interested in their health, we're in the same boat, attack them, you attack us. And the NSSF does quite a bit for gun owners in a whole range of areas including the political, although their focus is of course on the industry."

yoster• 13 years ago

I live in the U.S. and I am raising an eyebrow at this. For the rest of the world, I understand the need for this, but the easy access to guns we already have in the states would make it skeptical on why you would want one of these. I guess it would be for curiosity for some, but I would rather stick to my AK and shoot thousands of rounds reliably. I am a firm believer of "to each their own" so if people want to make these, I am all for it. If they blow up their face in the process of shooting, oh well. In a different perspective, I would rather build a gun with my hands as I am a firm believer of do it yourself.

clicks• 13 years ago

magnet:?xt=urn:btih:0ad7b4f1833e01a3f2fa5613d8fc46de622339ac&dn=DefDist+Defcad+Liberator+Printable+Gun for download.

To view it, download Blender (free and opensource 3d software)- http://download.blender.org/ (it allows you to import stl files if you want to view them; or export them from your designs when you want to 3d-print something).

Also, Github has in-browser STL rendering capability (e.g.: https://github.com/lorennorman/octocat-3d/blob/master/stl/oc... ). It's only a matter of time I guess before we'll all be seeing direct links to individual components.

dlitz• 13 years ago

That letter is surprisingly polite.

smsm4220• 13 years ago

Yeah, also when the suspect is taken into the police car, they ensure he doesn't bump his head on the roof, I've seen it. Doesn't change the fact he's taken into custody, though.

johnpowell• 13 years ago

I downloaded the file. I was curious to look at it and I am not all that impressed. It isn't amazing mechanical engineering. And I have a shotgun I bought a block from my house for 99 bucks and there was one page of paperwork and I used a expired ID card to buy it. It isn't hard to get a gun.

I'm actually pretty excited about the plastic gun thing. It is way less fingers that can pull the trigger on guns that are already really easy to get.

Edit: I should that I am for really strict gun laws. My father was killed by a gun that was bought in a pawn shop so if you even save a few people a year it is worth it.

toolslive• 13 years ago

right... so you're not allowed to download the plans for a gun, but you are allowed to buy a rifle for a 5 year old. For me, it seems this is just someone trying to protect their income.

hga19• 13 years ago

Only parents can judge when children are mature enough to wield guns, and obviously some will get it wrong. My father started directly teaching me how to shoot when I was around 6. At 3, he would start taking me and later my siblings with him when he went hunting, so he started teaching by example at that age.

His guns were never locked up, our parents "gun proofed" us, taught us about danger and responsibility. They're from the Silent Generation, it was assumed back then. Heck, my father and many of his classmates would store their hunting guns in their school lockers so they wouldn't have to go back home before hunting after school.

lispm• 13 years ago

There is some chance that these guys will be killed by guns of their own design. Possibly a cool attempt to get the Darwin award.

kevcampb• 13 years ago

There seems to be a lot of assumption that the govt is somehow misunderstanding technology or the internet. I doubt they expect to prevent the distribution of those files, or that they even care about the printed gun - as others have said, it's not really anything new as there are existing ways to make one.

What they probably do care about is Cody Wilson trying to build up some sort of cult around 3d weapon printing. He's spent quite a bit of effort trying to provoke the government and prove he can't be stopped. Seems he was wrong.

zero_intp2• 13 years ago

while I think cody is a repulsive regressive snot, I would risk my life to defend his words. I feel his files are his words.

As for cults, the USG just played directly into Cody's hands... the files have now spread father and wider than if the USG had just ignored them in the first place.

bane3• 13 years ago

The government's stated reason for taking it down is that making weapons technology available for international download via the internet requires an ITAR license [1]. If he had simply blocked international IP addresses from downloading it, it would not have fallen under the powers of the State Department. I've had to even do ITAR licensing on portable half-racks of off the shelf Dell servers.

It's a pain, but it is what it is.

1 - http://pmddtc.state.gov/regulations_laws/itar_official.html

Vivtek• 13 years ago

I just downloaded it from Hungary.

ITAR is moronic.

bane3• 13 years ago

> ITAR is moronic.

No disagreements here.

tomjen32• 13 years ago

First admentment triumphs ITAR, that is why you can export crypto programs.

bane3• 13 years ago

Nope, public safety trumps free speech.

You don't have to register with the State Department anymore and it's been loosened up a bit, but you still have to register with Commerce now and there's still restrictions.

http://www.bis.doc.gov/encryption/default.htm

Here's a nice article summarizing the current status

http://encryption_policies.tripod.com/us/rubinstein_1200_sof...

(not that I disagree with you in principle, just that the reality is not so cut and dry)

dllthomas2• 13 years ago

My understanding was you can export crypto programs by executive order, not a court decision, which means not any kind of a clear determination of what trumps what...

rrc• 13 years ago

One possibility I haven't seen mentioned here:

1. Government does actually know how the Internet works

2. Makes this attempt, knows it will fail

3. Waits until somebody blows themselves - or somebody else - up with a poorly made, 3D printed gun

4. Government points to failed attempt, argues it does not have the necessary power it needs to prevent these tragedies

5. Government passes bill expanding its power

6. Rinse, repeat

Of course my use of "government" here incorrectly suggests a single entity with a plan. Obviously it does really work that way, but bureaucracies sometimes remind me of organisms with memories, immune systems and, above all, a desire to grow.

bnc932• 13 years ago

Unless I'm missing something, you will still need to purchase ammo to use in your 3D-printed gun, or else it will be useless. Are the sales of ammunition in the US completely unregulated?

hfsktr• 13 years ago

When I worked at a place that sold ammo as far as I can remember we didn't have to track anything special. Guns had all kinds of tracking and restrictions, magazine sizes had restriction (for at least 5 states) but ammo seemed to be just fine. Since it was an internet store most of the orders were CC but even then we'd have the address we shipped to but it isn't like the ATF came in and asked about ammo. They would ask about the guns and make sure we were compliant there.

I get the nagging feeling that I had heard of some sort of tracking before but I can't recall any detail to search on. For all I know it might have just been a rumor and that increased our sales and that's what I heard.

Wal-Mart limits sales per customer per day[1].

[1]http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142412788732329370457833...

hga19• 13 years ago

As the article indicates, Wal-Mart's limits are only due to the severe, we've never seen anything like it before, post-Newton ammo shortage. My other comment in this subthread addresses the existing limits as I know them.

hga19• 13 years ago

Almost. Federal law has age limits, 18 except for 21 for handgun ammo. Mail order is entirely unregulated except of course requiring an ORD-M sticker and ground shipment.

Some states have regulations, from one outfit I buy from they would be California, Delaware, D.C., Illinois, Massachusetts, New York and Ohio, they warn you to check your state's laws before buying. Which leaves out a few of the worst states like New Jersey and includes one mostly OK state, Ohio (worst thing about it, unique in the nation, is that in a self-defense case the burden of proof is on you, but it otherwise has shall issue CCW et. al.).

jbester• 13 years ago

Keep in mind, ITAR and AECA regulations are concerned with export weapons and weapons systems to non-US entities. The munitions list (USML) includes everything from guns to airplanes. The regulations themselves go well beyond physical assets and include related software, documentation and design drawings. It is likely DEFCAD, if they survive any fines, could reopen if they can somehow verify the downloader does not require an export license.

This is the same set of regulations Robert Gates famously complained[1] restricted the export of F16 spare parts from the US. This platforms has been widely exported and this regulation applies to non-weapons related components i.e., canopy latches, flaps, etc.

[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/21/world/21export.html?_r=0

mordae• 13 years ago

From here it looks like in two years it will be completely possible to arm thousands of people on a large demonstration without law enforcement being able to step in. It might add some weight to peoples' opinion on CISPA, INDECT and other fascist inventions as they walk towards the parliament. And that's talking about first world.

Remember Athens, Egypt? Try imagining it a few years from now. People will have affordable real-time mesh communication networks, high quality urban mapping, printed guns and home-made explosives. How exactly would you suppress crowd like that? I say with understanding and empathy, because anything else will hurt.

iacvlvs• 13 years ago

"When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty."

vy8vWJlco• 13 years ago

"In Canada, it is legal to download the instructions, but there is a question of whether Canadians can legally print the components."

(from http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/story/2013/05/09/technolog... )

That's not especially significant in itself either, only somewhat reassuring for any Canuckois out there wishing to download the models.

US Government Takes Down 3D Printed Gun Plans

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