Pirate Bay Takes Over Distribution of Censored 3D Printable Gun

http://torrentfreak.com/pirate-bay-takes-over-distribution-of-censored-3d-printable-gun-130510

by astaire • 13 years ago

72 104 13 years ago

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samfisher83• 13 years ago

Once it is on the internet it is going to hard for any government to stop it. There are too many links to sever.

egeozcan2• 13 years ago

I'd say impossible. Are there any similar cases where a government or a company succeeded?

DigitalJack3• 13 years ago

They could poison the well, put nearly identical plans out there with a fatal-kill-the-shooter flaw in them.

Atropos• 13 years ago

I would estimate that it would be pretty much impossible for the average internet user to find child pornography or videos of murder/rape etc. But I find it is hard to estimate if the reason for that is targeted government action, or it is because sharing those kinds of material goes against the natural moral instinct of most normal people.

300bps• 13 years ago

I heard the designer of the gun on the BBC today. He said he created the design because he is a Libertarian and is trying to hasten the time when all information is freely available. He rejects government censorship of information.

He also said that the printer used to make his gun costs about $8,000 but that people were reporting making a working gun with as low as a $2,000 printer.

http://m.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-22478310

rickyc091• 13 years ago

I'm pretty sure a $2000 printer isn't necessary to print it. Printrbots are relatively cheap < $500, but you have to assemble it yourself.

PrintrBot+ printing + superfine resolutions http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jyrP4LWc0yk

DigitalJack3• 13 years ago

Do they use the same raw material?

knowaveragejoe2• 13 years ago

I can't imagine a $500 or even a $2000 printer can print a solid enough gun that could be reused over and over. A couple of shots, maybe.

astrodust• 13 years ago

It's basically a fancy zip gun (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Improvised_firearm), something people have been making ever since there were cartridges to put in them.

Like a home-made zip gun it's quite dangerous to use, and liable to malfunction in all kinds of ways harmful to the user.

shpxnvz• 13 years ago

It's worth noting that with a basic milling machine (about $400) an individual in the U.S. can legally manufacture for personal use an AR-15 lower receiver from either a bare or partially machined forging ($50) in as little as a few hours. Some have done the job with only a Dremel or hand drill, making the investment much cheaper.

I share this only to illustrate that this technology is not enabling a radical new ability to produce cheap personal-use weapons, but more of an (expensive) prototype evolutionary step in the process.

In addition, possibly in contrast to this printed design, a home made receiver that is properly surface-hardened after machining is fully as capable and safe as any other receiver manufactured to the TDP.

Zikes3• 13 years ago

> the Government explains that it wants to review whether the designs are in compliance with arms export control laws.

I don't understand why this is so reactionary. People have been (very publicly) attempting to make a working 3D printable gun for years, and only now that it's finally happened the appropriate government agency has decided to explore the legal implications?

mikeyouse4• 13 years ago

The government isn't pondering some philosophical question about 3D guns.

Defense Distributed has an active federal license to manufacture and distribute firearms. By posting blueprints online, it's very likely they've violated the conditions of that license.

From ITAR, what qualifies as sensitive:

    Technical data directly related to the manufacture or
    production of any defense articles enumerated elsewhere
    in this category that are designated as Significant
    Military Equipment (SME) shall itself be designated SME.

Further clarification:

    Information .... which is required for the design
    development, production, manufacture, assembly, operation,
    repair, testing, maintenance or modification of defense 
    articles. This includes information in the form of 
    blueprints, drawings, photographs, plans, instructions 
    and documentation.

How it can be in violation of law:

    An agreement whereby a U.S. person grants a foreign
    person an authorization to manufacture defense articles 
    abroad and which involves or contemplates .... The 
    export of technical data or defense articles ... 
    without first obtaining the required license or 
    written approval from the ODTC.

Possible punishment entails:

    Any person who willfully ... Violates any provision ... of 
    the Arms Export Control Act ... or ...  any rule or regulation 
    issued under either section ... shall upon conviction be
    fined for each violation not more than $1,000,000 or
    imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both.

Their blueprints clearly qualify as sensitive, any download traffic from overseas is enough to prove they distributed to 'foreign persons'. The political calculus could save them since it would appear like Obama is trying to ban guns even though Distributed Defense is clearly in violation of federal law.

I hope for their sake, there was no download activity from Iran, Cuba, North Korea, etc...

cobrausn2• 13 years ago

Actually I think they would hope their was download activity from Iran, Cuba, North Korea, etc... their stated goal is getting guns into the hands of oppressed citizens.

Finster• 13 years ago

And that's how the State Department learned there is no delete button on the internet.

TomGullen3• 13 years ago

I don't think people in charge are stupid. I just think they are pretty much forced to look like they are trying to act on it.

betterunix2• 13 years ago

Forced by who? Whoever is doing the forcing is the stupid...

fudged712• 13 years ago

Plus it helps them make the case that bittorrent networks are dangerous.

rollo_tommasi3• 13 years ago

Clearly impossible to stop the spread of this information, and any attempts to make it possible would be extremely objectionable, but anyone found actually producing or using these weapons should face extreme prison terms. Mass proliferation of handguns is responsible for thousands of deaths each year in this country alone, and we should be taking all feasible steps to reign it in.

Zikes3• 13 years ago

Not 24 hours ago the #1 post on HN was that gun crime has been downright plummeting for the past 20 years, despite the fact that more and more guns are being manufactured and sold.

I know it's a tired old saying, but the honest truth is that guns do not kill people, people kill people. Once you realize that, you realize that 3D printable guns are not a danger justifying "extreme prison terms".

rollo_tommasi3• 13 years ago

That gun crime has been falling does not mean that proliferation of guns is a neutral proposition, it only means that other trends have been stronger.

More handguns = more dead people, period. The only people rooting for a society awash in easily obtainable handguns are criminals and delusional libertarians with adolescent Minute Man fantasies.

cmdkeen• 13 years ago

Gun crime has plummeted in the USA nowhere near as much as in Australia where guns are banned. Gun crime hasn't plummeted in Mexico, with the USA being a prime source of weapons.

Crime in general has plummeted across the West, the increase in firearms in the USA is not a causative factor.

Keynes made the point that it is better to be austere in a time of plenty. The time to introduce gun control is when crime is falling, not try and introduce it when crime is rising and people feel like they might want to have weapons for self defence.

mpyne5• 13 years ago

And as the printable gun debacle mixed with the ongoing unsuccessful "War on Drugs" shows, we live in a time where it's essentially impossible to fully lock down the production of these types of things in a free society anyways.

Use the example of abstinence education: It's better to accept that guns will be made and use education and light regulation to minimize the damage than to try to squash them out completely.

conanbatt• 13 years ago

If someone put a gun factory in their backyard and starting distributing guns, he has to be found liable. Why should that be different for a plastic gun?

My concern is that a printed gun is disposable and untraceable. Without ballistics, its certainly a tempting option.

Also going through metal detectors is a huge deal over security measures.

It looks like a game changer to me.

jabbernotty• 13 years ago

> extreme prison terms

How about reasonable prison terms?

That could end up being no time at all.

egeozcan2• 13 years ago

If people want to kill each other, I guess, a 3d model of a gun being available on the internet would make no difference.

onemorepassword• 13 years ago

All evidence to the contrary.

Unless you seriously want to claim that the number of murders and easy access to firearms are merely a matter of accidental correlation.

You're correct if you're talking premeditated killing. But most killings aren't.

Zoepfli2• 13 years ago

So what's the legality of distributing just the magnet link hash? That's just a 40 char string. If somebody would publish that string in this place here, is that illegal as well? It's a lot of steps removed from a crime:

1- crime where a shot is fired

2- gun

3- gun creation

4- gun 3d file

5- somebody supplying you this file

6- the magnet directory giving you a link to the file supplier

7- the link hash giving you a link to the magnet directory

Can a 40 char string be illegal?

mpyne5• 13 years ago

Free speech is free speech. This is how Phil Zimmerman defeated export controls in the first place with PGP. He developed the code outside of the U.S. (where it was legal), printed books containing it (one of the best-protected free speech rights), imported the book to the U.S. (so that he's not trafficking in "munitions"), scanned in the code in the U.S., and formed a PGP in the U.S.

The U.S.-based code could then be distributed within the U.S. since ITAR is an export control only. The sheer ridiculousness of the whole thing eventually helped lead to legalizing useful crypto in the U.S. I guess we'll see what happens here.

Zoepfli2• 13 years ago

A 3d blueprint file could be considered free speech as well, and yet it was just declared illegal. Can you explain that?

anExcitedBeast2• 13 years ago

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

acomjean• 13 years ago

who didn't see that coming?

They'll also be the home of plans for all copyrighted StarWars and other figurines.

Be interesting to see if they can stop the spread of those plans. I doubt it though.

BashiBazouk• 13 years ago

It seems to me that if you can afford a 3D printer, the computer to run it and the technical ability to do the printing and assembly you probably already have better options than a funky zip gun of questionable quality. I would think the money to buy the above equipment would get you a decent gun on the black market if guns are illegal in your country. And if there is no black market to speak of, then you would probably not be allowed to buy the 3D printer in the first place.

It seems like this is more of a novelty than anything useful.

anExcitedBeast2• 13 years ago

You're right in that this weapon isn't really worth the effort, and if it were only about this particular file neither Defense Distributed or the US government would have cause for concern.

This is a big deal because 1) this is one of the first weapons designed from the ground up to be printed. Most printed firearms based on existing tech break easily because they weren't designed to be built with the materials you can print with. Over the next several years better and better firearms will be designed. In this way it is important the same way the very first shitty light bulb was important. 2) this addresses the still very unanswered question about what options governments have to restrict speech and international distribution of information over the Internet.

sageikosa2• 13 years ago

I believe the novelty is being able to get it past metal detectors.

Nux• 13 years ago

Somehow this makes me sad. Guns are bad.

knowaveragejoe2• 13 years ago

Additionally, this gives TPTB an excellent excuse to to crack down on 3D printing in its formative years while masquerading as a safety measure.

jff2• 13 years ago

I think you have a bright future in the opinion pages!

Zenst2• 13 years ago

I can understand the govermental concerns and questions I have are:

1) If such a gun was used in a crime, would bullet rifeling patterns be usable to tie up the shot fired to the plastic barrel gun and let alone the ability to dispose of said gun with a simple lighter.

2) Concerns about it only having a metal firing pin and with that how hard would it be to use say another material for the firing pin like graphite or a the like - only needs to fire one shot

I also understand why this project was done, it was a challange and we like challanges.

But as other have said, it is a simple type of gun that is the form that can be made by anybody wishing to make such a zip gun, still need ammunition.

What the concerns are is they have created a form of weapon that can be produced as easily as a photograph and that is just the tip of the concerns.

I will say that personaly whilst making a printable gun was something that was going to happen, giving out the blueprints for anybody to use and abuse was perhaps akin to writing expliot code and releaseing into the wild for any script kiddy to use and abuse with there click-run mentality.

The sad part is that people pushing out such blueprints for such printers will only mean that down the line such printers will get taxed and curtailed and effect those who mean no harm and the type of people who given a nuke button infron of them would resist in pressing it as they know the concequences.

As soon as a crime is commited with such a gun they will be banned and the 3d printer market will get more controled by legislation. Which is sad when such vigor is not bestowed upon normal guns.

Facts are guns do bad things in bad hands so the net result is they are outlawed in many countries and championed as rights in others. So if anything this highlights the issue with guns and not 3D printers, though I suspect the Rifle associations of the World will not defend 3D printers if they start to be restricted over this issue.

As an aside nukes are illegal, yet if somebody posted blueprints to make one, well that would pan out badly. Yet on some level this is just the same.

I applaud that somebody did and proved it was viable, I'm personaly not happy they gave out the blueprints in a form that enable people who do not understand the issues free access to them. Most will be good people, but not all and that is the crux of concerns however you look at them. So with that this is akin to releaseing 0-day expliot code into the wild in a point and click form.

phreeza• 13 years ago

> giving out the blueprints for anybody to use and abuse was perhaps akin to writing expliot code and releaseing into the wild for any script kiddy to use and abuse with there click-run mentality.

I am no expert, but from what I understand, 3D printing is still far from being a 'click-and-run' type of experience.

Zenst2• 13 years ago

You may be right and as I don't own a 3D printer or have used one myself I could not say if it is or not, but certainly that is the level of consumer use that they will end up, and be no differnt in ease of use than a normal inkjet.

willholloway• 13 years ago

Guns aren't that scary. We are good at identifying and arresting/shooting gunmen, they can rarely kill more than a handful of us. Look forward enough in time and be afraid of the time when it's easy to download and print virulent pathogens or other WMDs.

As technology amplifies individuals power, it will only take one unhinged person to cause massive damage.

I don't think law enforcement/military/intelligence/censorship approaches will work when massive destructive power is in the hands of individuals.

Possible if incomplete solutions I can foresee are in the realm of genetically engineering increased empathy in humanity and eliminating psychopathic/anti-social tendencies from the gene pool. Eugenics is unpalatable and too slow, we will need an intelligent and targeted handover from evolution to engineering our DNA.

One day our civilization may wake up and realize exploiting entire classes and nations is untenable in the face of asymmetrical revenge.

This isn't at hand today, but my mind can't help but follow this trend to its inevitable eventuality. On spaceship earth we are all in this together.

EDIT: My choice of language was poor. Guns are scary, what I should have said is they are not an existential threat.

EDIT 2, this time for clarity and with feeling: When I say we are good at stopping gunmen and they rarely kill more than handful of us, I did not mean in the aggregate. I meant an individual gunmen rarely kills more than a handful of us.

A great example that underlines my point here is the North Hollywood shootout. From Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Hollywood_shootout):

"Both robbers were killed, eleven police officers and seven civilians were injured, and numerous vehicles and other property were damaged or destroyed by the nearly 2,000 rounds of ammunition fired by the robbers and police."

No one but the gunmen were killed. Of course the counterpoint to this anecdote are mass shootings like Columbine. These shootings terrorize us emotionally and destroy families, but when thought of statistically they are an extremely minor threat.

TomGullen3• 13 years ago

> Guns aren't that scary. We are good at identifying and arresting/shooting gunmen, they can rarely kill more than a handful of us

Guessing you're from the US - where there were 14,078 firearm related homicide deaths in 2010? I don't think that's an indicator you're any good at identifying gunmen at all. 14,000 deaths is also considerably more than "a handful".

Gun deaths in UK in 2007 totalled 51. So yes, I do feel less scared in the UK than I do in USA.

In 2010, 499 service personnel were killed in Afghanistan. I wonder what public sentiment would be if that total was closer to the 14,000 back at home.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_violence_in_the_United_Stat... http://icasualties.org/oef/

pessimizer2• 13 years ago

>closer to the gun death rate back at home

You haven't mentioned one rate, just totals.

betterunix2• 13 years ago

"14,000 deaths is also considerably more than "a handful"."

It is also considerably less than the number of automobile deaths per year -- less than half, in fact.

"Gun deaths in UK in 2007 totalled 51. So yes, I do feel less scared in the UK than I do in USA."

The murder rate is lower in the UK for all weapons, so you are right to feel safer there.

Jach• 13 years ago

Meanwhile...[1] Homicides from firearms aren't even close to the largest cause of death. More people kill themselves with firearms than they kill others (19k vs 11k--I'm not sure where that wiki page is getting its numbers since their own citation matches mine[2]). We also have 5k unspecified or non-firearm-related homicides. Across the whole world, about 1.8 people die per second, 14k is about 2 hours, spread across an entire year. All this is why 14k is a handful relative to other causes of death.

[1] http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/lcod.htm

[2] http://www.cdc.gov/injury/wisqars/pdf/10LCID_Violence_Relate...

lifeguard10• 13 years ago

In American, guns are toys to make men feel strong. They are worse than useless in the hands of the untrained and unpracticed.

example:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8QjZY3WiO9s

hga11• 13 years ago

In the US around 2.25 million times a year a gun is used in self-defense. In way over 90% of those incidents the gun is never fired, just a display of it and the willingness to use it are sufficient.

Anecdotally I'm personally amazed at how well many untrained people successfully use shoot guns in self-defense situations. I would guess that after centuries of incremental ergonomic improvements they turn out to be not so hard to use, and use safely (in terms of accidents they're lots safer than automobiles).

lifeguard10• 13 years ago

"One day our civilization may wake up and realize exploiting entire classes and nations is untenable in the face of asymmetrical revenge."

Good luck with that.

deadsy• 13 years ago

I'm not sure what the big deal is. Individuals have been smithing guns since their invention. Hillbillies in the Ozarks could make rifled barrels. People with a manual or cnc mill in their garage are making ar15 lower receivers from billet aluminum. The 3d printing technique takes a lot of the skill out of it, but at the moment all you are getting is a low quality plastic gun. As a practical matter I don't think the swapping of gun part cad files is a significant vector for the creation of guns that are used to do bad things.

BrianEatWorld• 13 years ago

I'd agree with you on the model in question, but I could see costs going down, quality improving and designs shifting to cater to the limitations of the medium over time to the extent that more lethal firearms are being produced.

For this particular model, its an interesting question of margins. If you are someone who is looking to willfully harm people, you could download these CAD files, find a printer and be armed without ever showing up on enforcement radar and without the need for links to underground dealers. However, your lethality will be limited.

testbro• 13 years ago

Given that all a 3D printer will produce is plastic (ignoring SLS as it's much further away on the radar), the number of shots is limited before it fails. That's in addition to the requirement to buy ammunition first. Something from Home Depot probably poses a greater threat and would be equally undetectable.

I can't imagine anyone opting to buy a printer, calibrate it and print a terrible gun when they could just buy a hammer (or improvise a firearm out of a piece of pipe).

sageikosa2• 13 years ago

And what if each of the individual parts were distributed at different sites? I am thinking of the "world's funniest joke" sketch from Monty Python, the joke so funny it was lethal.

Would any one file describing a single fashionable part be in violation also?

ttrreeww• 13 years ago

Information wants to be free. Soon, technology will want to be free. And we will all work for free.

gasull2• 13 years ago

Some countries like Switzerland have plenty of guns and they are pretty safe places.

Those who want to harm other people find the means to do it. Let's focus on the roots of violence, not the means.

saraid2162• 13 years ago

Most of the gun proliferation behaviors in the US are rooted in a desire to hurt people. They're using plenty of other tools besides guns to do it, because ultimately, even a nuclear bomb is less efficient at screwing others over than denying universal healthcare.

obviouslygreen• 13 years ago

Most of the gun proliferation behaviors in the US are rooted in a desire to hurt people.

I can confirm this. As an American from a family with a long history of gun ownership, and having grown up around and interacted with many others of the same nature, there is not a single doubt that gun ownership in the US can be trivially summed up in such a fashion.

There is, after all, no other reason to own guns in the US. We do not allow hunting here, target shooting is not a popular activity, and with near-zero crime rates, there is no reason anyone should consider owning a firearm for protection.

Honestly, I don't understand how some people feel justified making ridiculous claims like this.

fudged712• 13 years ago

It pains me that so many people are talking about the freedom to distribute these designs without discussing the negative impact that "3D printed weapons" will have on the widespread acceptance of 3D printing in homes and communities.

I'd much rather see the world embrace 3D printing than fear it. Talk about "what we can print" after we all have access to 3D printers. We aren't there yet.

lifeguard10• 13 years ago

This is all absurd for an important reason:

One can not create a riffled barrel out of plastic. This is a $20k zip gun.

"Within production quality firearms, pistol and rifle barrels have tiny grooves cut inside of them. The grooves do not run straight, however are curved slowly throughout the length of the barrel. This technique is called rifling. Rifling causes the bullet to spin as it passes through the barrel. The spinning assists in stabilizing the bullet and making the gun more accurate. "

http://www.gunslot.com/blog/how-make-gun-common-materials-se...

hga11• 13 years ago

So was the original Liberator: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FP-45_Liberator

And some of the use cases are the same, e.g. you can use it to "liberate" far more useful weapons.

lifeguard10• 13 years ago

Only in fevered dreams. The original was a psy op against the Germans. It was also VASTLY superior to this plastic gizmo.

"Most of the cartridge's hot gas spills out of the muzzle without getting a chance to do any work on the bullet, which is the main reason the cruddy "barrel" doesn't (always) come to bits on the first shot and the cartridge case (probably) doesn't just spit backward into the user's face."

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/05/10/oh_no_its_the_plasti...

Pirate Bay Takes Over Distribution of Censored 3D Printable Gun

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