A Danish company claims to have addressed the concern over 3D-printed guns, not by improving the skills of law enforcement, but by improving the skills of computer software. In a press release, the firm Create it REAL has announced the release of a program that actually recognizes an .stl file as a firearm and, then, prevents it from being printed.
For those who wished to block the printing of firearms, there was the problem of how to go about doing it. It seemed that one couldn’t simply ban the use of 3D printers because the world had already begun to embrace the technology. To ban 3D printing would be to ban a truly transformative technology with the potential for a positive impact on the world. And banning gun files themselves has its own limitations, as evidenced when the Liberator files were removed from Defense Distributed’s own site only to remain in circulation on The Pirate Bay, and other torrent sites.
What Create it REAL came up with is a system that operates in the printing software itself. Their method is similar to that of photo editing programs, like Photoshop, that have the built-in capacity to recognize currency and blocks users from scanning or opening files for forging money. When a user attempts to open up the .stl for a gun, the file will be checked against a range of characteristics found in a firearm and, if it resembles one, the file will be prevented from opening and printing. This method may hinder users with more sophisticated machines with built-in software from fabricating guns, but I can imagine ways to get around this obstacle for those who are serious about arms manufacturing, such as software cracks or even modifying the parts of the gun themselves so as to elude the company’s program. Their solution may not be foolproof, but Create it REAL has at least found a way to make gun printing harder.
Look into the company a little further and you find something that’s more interesting than the gun prohibition software, though. Aside from researching things like bioprinting and nanoprinting, the company sells 3D printers. But they aren’t selling their own line with their own name on it, they’re selling their own line attached to the logos of other retailers. If someone’s interested in selling 3D printers, they can modify Create it REAL’s Platon FDM 3D printer to meet their specs and sell it under their own brand. Their sleek website explains the process like this:
Create it Real helps you join the 3rd industrial revolution with our 3D printing technology package. This package contains all the elements you need to start the production of desktop 3D printer products. If you are a part of the consumer electronic business but are lacking the R&D expertise to produce a desktop 3D printer product, Create it REAL has developed technology solutions for you. These will enable you to quickly launch a proprietary and state of the art 3D printer product on the market with minimum technology development risks.
So, say you’re RadioShack. You can ask them to increase the size of the model, change out the extruder for something else, and tell them to slap the Shack insignia on it and you’ve got your own line to sell in stores. This is the first time I’ve come across this idea in this market and it has some interesting prospects. I can think of at least one company that could stand to have its logo on a 3D printer.
I’m so tired of this controversy. It is much easier and safer to use other tools in a machine shop to build a gun. None of them have restrictive software. Who is dumb enough to want a plastic gun anyway?
3D printers are open source. All of the knowledge to build one, all of the software to run it, are available right now, and have been copied thousands of times. The horses are out of the barn and miles away, closing the door now does no good at all.
Their idea of branding/customizing a 3D printer is not unique at all, it is pretty standard in all manufacturing. Difficult to stay in business that way in the modern world economy, since anyone can do the same thing.
“their solution may not be foolproof, but Create it REAL has at least found a way to make gun printing harder.”
They made shit harder – until every Printer Creator or Host Software Creator accepts this as a standard, this is utter BS. Plus: Opening Autodesk, modifying files a little, done
The premise that 3D printed guns need to be stopped from being printed is once again a knee jerk reaction by people who probably never even handled a firearm, let alone understand what it takes to manufacture one. A 3D printed gun is worthless. People have been manufacturing homemade firearms for centuries. Today many citizens around the world can make a gun using existing tools that are much more reliable and deadly. I chuckle at the whole circus.
Idiot progressive liberal communists, strike again…Molon Labe!!
Christian: Marxism is based upon the premise of State-owned means of production. Open-source home 3D printing facilitates the potential of individual ownership of means of production: neither Communist or Capitalist. Not that either of those socio-economic modalities themselves are anything like all encompassing… there are many forms of both, extant and historical. You may be aware of these facts: Articulation is everything.
WildZBill: Indeed, the Powers that be will find this one difficult to close down. They’ll do what they can, and, given the pending Internet of Things it’s unlikely that 3DP on any mass scale will facilitate too great a level of autonomy for households? The vast majority of people are just not thinking about such things: They follow the direct and indirect instructions laid before them by State and industry?
joninva: Empathy to you. 3D Printing Industry tries to minimise the 3DP gun story outside of developments that may aid restricting the unregulated flow of arms, rather than jumping on the mass media sensationalist bandwagon. That’s not an easy choice, but it is not an ethical one: given the amount of political chaos in the world at this time. I, just one person’s opinion, agree that the reaction of US politician’s Yee, Israel , etc. were knee-jerk. From the other perspective though, hegemony of Law by State and hegemony of Law in the international order by World Power’s are maintained by control of that which maintains their hegemony: Force.
Nils: True, but also not when this development is taken relative to others regarding this topic; I’m not willing to expand further as my words may be taken and actualised by a reader regarding ways around it. For me, and I can only speak for myself, I don’t believe it is up to any technology- and/or information-empowered individual to propose ways around arms controls? Is it not a matter for democracy?
Just my thoughts to some interesting and lively comments.
It is extremely difficult to print complex mechanisms on a 3D printer all as one finished part because the plastic tends to ooze and melt and so on. Someone who wants to do a 3D printed gun would learn very quickly that they had to break the gun out into different components. Once that’s done, what’s going to stop me from just printing each component by itself?
Or just not electing to use this software in the first place, since there is already more than enough open source stuff to slice models, AND run the print jobs, AND take care of the firmware end on the printer? Why would someone who wants a printed gun go out of their way to get some commercial software that would get in their way, when the free stuff already works? There’s nothing to this, it’s designed to appeal to idiot soccer moms who can’t think more than two levels deep into any problem.
Or… how about this:
1 x length of threaded pipe the right diameter for a shotgun shell (yes, it’s a standard size!)
1 x threaded end cap
1 x firing pin, oops, I mean “nail”
1 x drill press and a bit that will cut metal, wide enough for the nail
That’s all I need to make something that will fire a shotgun shell. I saw a YouTube video of it. The guy was able to fire a shell out of a simple length of pipe with nothing but a nail for a firing pin. Why would I even bother with a 3D printer? It would take longer and the product would suck compared to $10 of stuff from Home Depot. Again – this whole “3D printed guns” nonsense is just that, nonsense. It gets people to watch the news, so they can sell advertising, so the news exec can buy another yacht, and he doesn’t care if you are literally being made stupid by his company’s broadcasts. That is the ONLY reason this “furor” is an item.