This first bill allows the state of California to regulate and oversee all 3D prints in the name of public safety.
Why are they so scared of us that they must enslave us?
Because we could fuck up their shit pretty easily with just the slightest mass motivation.
Proposal: All elected officials must install Corruption Blocking Software that scans all their communications, financial records and assets, and uses advanced Corruption Pattern Matching Algorithms to determine if they might be taking bribes from industry lobbyists, pumping up their own investments, or secretly serving special interest groups, or if they’re just general nutjobs.
Why stop at elected officials any company has to do this. If they can infringe our rights why not make sure everyone has their rights taken away.
I’m sorry you can’t print a garden hose nozzle because AI thinks it is a gun.
I’m sorry you can’t print a caulking gun because AI thinks it is a gun.
I’m sorry you can’t print a water pistol because it’s a gun.
It’s also pretty much a technical impossibility if you know anything about 3D printers.
3D printers can’t read CAD. They aren’t fed STLs or any other kind of 3D model. They’re fed G-Code, which contains no geometrical details. It’s a list of instructions saying “turn these 4 motors this speed this for this amount of time while heating that part to this temperature and turning this other motor this speed, then heat this part while tunlrning that motor that fast…” with hundreds or thousands of instructions, and then new instructions for the next layer.
In order to print a model, you first have to run it through a program called a slicer that generates that G-code by slicing it into layers with instructions for how to move, heat and cool the nozzle, build plate, and chamber, feed the filament, etc.
The printers just follow those instructions with minimal on-board processing and zero information regarding the final model’s structure.
Those instructions can be translated into the final product. It isn’t hard when you know what each instruction produces…
to comply, vendors would need to require printers sold in california to be locked (presumably by encryption) to a proprietary slicer with ai vision that could try to determine if the thing being printed looked like a gun. Maybe if there was a bullet sized barrel and access around the striker area.
Makerbot more or less did this. It was a pain in the ass to use a non-makerbot-desktop slicer with a 2/2x series.
But the most popular brand right now forces server interaction.
Speaking as someone that knows basically nothing about 3d printing (though has done similar with CNC), do you think it’d be possible to reverse-engineer the code in some way? I’m thinking something like a simulated 3d printer 🤷♀️
You can, sure. but then you have a new file that is entirely distinct from the original model (as far as computer hashing is concerned). So you have to do several steps to legally comply with this:
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Receive gcode file
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use costly ai to convert the gcode to a 3d model.
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use costly ai to try to figure out what the 3d model is.
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do all of this either via a remote connection, or on a processor weaker than the median game console from the 1990s.
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repeat for every single attempted print, which can be several dozen per completed product depending on how annoying the calibration was that day
So if you’re a 3d printing business you now have to have your own data center basically dedicated to the tens of millions of potential prints you’re going to receive, because it’s near impossible to fingerprint g-code as it’s dynamically generated from each different CAD software differently based on thousands of settings.
Essentially any 3d printer manufacturer is going to just say “not for use in california” instead of paying hundreds of millions of dollars a year to try to comply with this.
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there are many open sourced software applications than can produce G-Code for any printer. All of it can be done offline.
What’s next? Monitoring ink printers? you gonna stop me from printing out an image of (insert copyright charater here)? Oh yha, they would of they could. Many wernt going to make weapons, but now they might just to defend themselves. Good job. /s
Printers that detect whether you’re printing the Una Bombers Manifesto again.
This is actually a thing, but specifically for blocking people from printing currency IIRC.
Politicians - the original Backdoor Sluts
I read the article and what a load of shit. So you can’t 3D print a cosplay gun? How far will this go? Water pistols? Ray gun props? Children’s toys. Plastic guns are not illegal, just certain ones.
If I lived in California, I think I would invest in a really good 3d printer now-ish and just never update the software. Big brother is watching everything.
Guns are just a weak excuse, as if it’s hard to get a gun in the US.
They want to monitor what you print. This means trademarked toys and figures, or copies of parts used in self-repair projects. The next stage is to charge fees to print copyright, or patented objects, or parts to repair. This also means they can spy on your designs and intellectual property.
It’s almost like governments of all sizes have been captured by companies and now protect them against the evil consumer which is completely backwards to what governmental organizations were originally created for.
Same California that is supposedly against the federal government’s assaults on people’s rights and freedoms…?
Same California governor that wants to run for president to end fascism in the country…?
What’s to stop anyone from driving out of state to buy the printer, or having it shipped from out of state? I swear to dog legislators are virtue signaling dip-shits.
Eventually they will all fall in line.
Authoritarians just doing what authoritarians do.
Genuine question. Would you all be fine if instead they required that printers add some sort of invisible tracking data? Similar to how 2d printers do.
I know that would be difficult to do with this tech but if it were possible.
I print toys for my kids, small pieces to fix things and not much else. While I’ve got nothing to hide, but still find this unnecessarily invasive.
I’d be ok if they didn’t track anything.
I’m surprised the title wasn’t sensationalized.
3D Printers getting their backdoor smashed by California lobbyists
Printing companies should stop selling in California.
Everybody should also stop considering the US like one country, because it functions less than one country than the EU and the EU isn’t and the US is.
Backdoor Bill? Haven’t seen that porno yet.
Aaaaah… If they were just so restrictive on gun laws… insert image of utopian healthy world here
