Tag: Technology

3D Printer Firearm Manufacture Moves to Bypass Censorship and Copyright of CAD Models

Last month DEFCAD was launched to host firearm related 3D printer models after Thingverse implemented site-wide censorship. Cody Wilson, the man behind Defense Distributed, is working on a new endeavor, a commercial version of DefCAD aimed at the free distribution of 3D models and bypassing copyright laws:

Wilson said DefCAD will become a for-profit corporation that will act as a one-stop search engine for “3D printable models” of just about anything. In other words, DefCAD hopes to be an expanded version of the physibles section on the Pirate Bay.

“It maintains all the present features but we step it up a notch,” Wilson told Ars. “The Pirate Bay has the right idea with physibles, but increasingly the fight is going to be about physical copyright—we want to build one of the tools early.”

And like the Pirate Bay, which has thumbed its nose at corporations, copyright, and the legal system for digital goods, Wilson suggests DefCAD would do the same for physical objects as much as possible.

[…]

“Help us turn DefCAD into the world’s first unblockable, open-source search engine for 3D printable parts,” Wilson narrates in the video. “There will be no takedowns. Ever.”

[…]

Wilson acknowledged that like the Pirate Bay, there are “contingency plans” to incorporate or move his operations to other countries not as affected by the DMCA. He specifically mentioned Slovakia, Russia and Singapore as “places we could go.”

The commercial DefCAD site is up and looking for crowd sourced funding. While I admit that this venture may not turn out and there is always the chance that this endeavor is a scam I believe Cody had demonstrated his sincerity by setting up DefCAD.org and developing a 3D printable AR-15 lower. Due to those facts alone dropped them $50.00 because I believe in the cause. I, like Code, am a crypto-anarchist and believe a world where voluntary interactions, not coercive interactions, are the norm:

So what’s Wilson’s endgame? He describes himself as a “crypto-anarchist” who follows the teachings of 19th-century French anarchist philosopher Pierre-Joseph Proudhon.

“I believe in revolution—not the capital-R ‘Revolution,’ but I’m all for the next thing,” Wilson said. “No one can imagine the end of neo-liberal democracy. I don’t believe in socialism from above, but socialism from below. It doesn’t matter what it is, the point is that it’s not imposed. It will be what it needs to look like. [Society will be] based not on coercion but cooperation—I’m a desperate romantic. If any of these things are possible, I don’t want to believe in anything else. I want to see if these are real and can work.”

His viewpoint isn’t that dissimilar from my own:

The revolution won’t be violent, it won’t involve fighting in the streets, it won’t involved people rising up and overthrowing the governments of the world. What the revolution will involve is the continuous decentralization of power. Technology will continue to evolve in a manner that empowers individuals to separate themselves from their rulers. Powerful corporations who have enjoyed protection from competition through the state’s decrees will lose their power as an ever growing number of people are able to replicate their goods from the safety of their own homes. Enforcing patents and regulations will become impossible. As people begin to fabricate needed goods themselves the large corporations and the state will bring in less wealth. People will no longer be forced to buy goods from politically connected corporations or pay sales tax to the state.

3D printers stand to be one of the greatest tools ever devise for stripping power from the handful of centralized entities that currently hold it. The state’s laws become more and more irrelevant as people become less and less reliant on it and its cronies. Gun control laws would be meaningless in a world where any individual can easily fabricate whatever firearm they want. Wealth raked in through sales tax would dwindle as individuals are able to make needed goods themselves. Couple 3D printer technology with anonymizing tools such as Tor and you have a world where information cannot be censored, tied to any specific individuals, and goods can be shipped from designers to customers free of the state’s watchful eye.

We will not achieve liberty, in the firearms community or in general, through political involvement. Begging those in power to cede their power is a foolhardy strategy that is doom from the start. When you involve yourself in politics you involve yourself in a system that was designed and can be redesigned at any time by those currently in power. Playing outside of the political system allows you to play by your own set or rules. Instead of begging those in power for liberty you can develop ways to entirely bypass their tyranny. If you want to ensure the state cannot ban firearms, magazines, or other related accessories it would behoove you to do whatever is in your power to ensure 3D printer technology advances.

MakerBot Industries Unveils Prototype 3D Scanner

3D printers are a marvel of modern engineering. A device that is able to build almost any solid object from the ground up stands to reshape modern manufacturing. One of the gaps in the technology has been the lack of a tool that allows you to scan an object so you can replicate it. Last week at South by Southwest MakerBot industries unveiled a prototype desktop 3D scanner:

The maker community has helped on that front, as well, with MakerBot’s Thingiverse serving as an unparalleled resource for 3D images, meaning that, once your printer’s all set up and calibrated, you can download and print to your hearts delight — but what if, say, you want to print up something that some kindly soul hasn’t designed for you? You could learn a CAD program — or you could invest in an industrial 3D scanner. The latter option has lead to something of a land rush of companies and individuals looking to break things wide open with an affordable, consumer-facing offering. And while MakerBot still seems a ways away from the final product, the company used SXSW as a platform to unveil a prototype of its MakerBot Digitizer Desktop 3D Scanner.

Imagine being able to toss a part onto a scanner and having copies print out in a few minutes. That’s what 3D scanners combined with 3D printers stands to do. It will be interesting to see where this technology goes in the next decade.

Eric Holder Believes Swartz’s Case was a Good Use of Judicial Discretion

Eric holder believes that demanding jail time to justify charges that were based on a document, not a crime, was a good use of judicial discretion:

Attorney General Eric Holder on Wednesday said the suicide death of internet activist Aaron Swartz was a “tragedy,” but the hacking case against the 26-year-old was “a good use of prosecutorial discretion.”

Holder, the nation’s top prosecutor, is the highest-ranking member of the President Barack Obama administration to defend the indictment and prosecution of the former director of Demand Progress, who committed suicide in January as his April trial approached. Holder’s comments come seven weeks after Massachusetts U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz, whose office was prosecuting Swartz, said the authorities’ actions were “appropriate in bringing and handling this case.”

This isn’t surprising to hear from a man who believe it’s legal to murder United States citizens in the United States without due process. Still, you would think the man could show at least a little remorse for ruining a man’s life just to prop up a dying industry for a short while longer. Instead he came out and said his boys did a bang up job and that the ends (protecting the state’s cronies) justified the means (terrorizing a man and ruining his life).

United States Lawmakers Considering Undoing Damage They Caused

The politicians in Washington DC are making noise about legalizing the act of unlocking a phone:

A U.S. senator has proposed a bill that will allow consumers to unlock cellphones for use in other networks, after the administration of President Barack Obama backed over 114,000 petitioners who asked the government to legalize the unlocking of smartphones.

“You bought it, you should be able to use it. My Wireless Device Independence Act ensures you can unlock your device,” said Senator Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat, in a Twitter message on Tuesday.

The proposed “Wireless Device Independence Act of 2013” aims to amend Section 1201(a)(1)(B) of title 17 of the United States Code which deals with circumvention of copyright protection systems.

What Senator Wyden’s Wireless Device Independence Act does is undo the damage caused by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), which he apparently liked enough to not oppose the voice vote that passed the DMCA during his time in office. But now he’s going to be magnanimous and allow us lowly serfs to do with our property as we wish. If Wyden really wants to correct the root of the problem he should be working to repeal the DMCA in its entirety.

Tor Relay Update

Last week I mentioned that I purchased a Raspberry Pi specifically to use as a Tor relay. Two days ago I received the following e-mail:

Hello and welcome to Tor!

We’ve noticed that your Tor node christopherburg (id: 3F17 3F07 DDBB D8F6 34C7 9588 6F99 E808 1AE6 AB42) has been running long enough to be flagged as “stable”. First, we would like to thank you for your contribution to the Tor network! As Tor grows, we require ever more nodes to improve browsing speed and reliability for our users. Your node is helping to serve the millions of Tor clients out there.

As a node operator, you may be interested in the Tor Weather service, which sends important email notifications when a node is down or your version is out of date. We here at Tor consider this service to be vitally important and greatly useful to all node operators. If you’re interested in Tor Weather, please visit the following link to register:

https://weather.torproject.org/

You might also be interested in the tor-announce mailing list, which is a low volume list for announcements of new releases and critical security updates. To join, visit the following address:

https://lists.torproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/tor-announce

Thank you again for your contribution to the Tor network! We won’t send you any further emails unless you subscribe.

Disclaimer: If you have no idea why you’re receiving this email, we sincerely apologize! You shouldn’t hear from us again.

As of this writing my relay has been running for 8 days, has sent 38.65 GB of data, and has received 38.10 GB of data. I’m happy that this thing has proven to be an effective relay. My next step is to pursue the development of a relay image that can be written to an SD card, plugged into a Raspberry Pi, and operate as a relay without requiring any additional (or, at least, significant) configuration.

How Tor and HTTPS Work

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has posted a nice diagram that explains how Tor and Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure (HTTPS) work in regards to security and anonymity. If you click the HTTPS button the diagram explains how HTTPS protects your data, if you click the Tor button the diagram explains how Tor protects your anonymity, if you have both buttons clicked the diagram explains how Tor and HTTPS work together to protect your data and anonymity.

Neither Tor or HTTPS are perfect, especially when you’re accessing data outside of the Tor network (in other words, not accessing a hidden service). The anonymity that Tor provides cannot protect you if you chose to reveal personal information and HTTPS is only a secure as the trust chain created by issued certificates. The trust chain created by HTTPS has been compromised before when hackers were able to acquire the root signing certificates used by DigiNotar and it’s possible that many trusted certificate authorities are willing to issue fraudulent certificate to government entities. However both tools are relatively effective at what they do and when used in unison can do a great deal to protect your identify online.

Crypto-Anarchism Defeated Gun Control

Defense Distributed just released a video demonstrating their 3D printed AR-15 lower surviving 600 founds:

In my opinion this video demonstrates two important things: the utility of 3D prints and the fact that gun control is dead. When I said gun control is dead I don’t mean the state is going to stop passing laws, I mean that gun control laws are no longer relevant. Technology that allows an individual to easily construct a firearm in their home is now growing out of its infancy.Once a technology evolves beyond its infancy it cannot be stopped from continuing to grow. It is only a matter of time before all parts of a firearm can be produced on a 3D printer. In all likelihood it will only be a few years until affordable 3D printers capable of working with metal hit the market and enable the construction of parts such as bolts, barrels, and gas tubes.

Ironically gun control was killed by crypto-anarchism:

While it may be easy to paint Wilson [the developer of the lower] as a 2nd Amendment-touting conservative, the 25-year-old second-year law student at the Univeristy of Texas, Austin told Ars on Thursday that he’s actually a “crypto-anarchist.”

I say it’s ironic because crypto-anarchism has been pooh-poohed by statists and many anarchists alike. Criticisms against crypto-anarchism revolved around the claim that it only dealt with cyberspace and was unable to affect the real world. What its critics failed to predict was the fall of the barriers separating cyberspace from the real world. 3D printers, in my opinion, were the tool that destroyed the last major barrier. With the invention of 3D printing it became possible to create real world objects based on designs created and distributed online. Suddenly the fabrication of goods is no longer relegated to a handful of individuals. Anybody with a 3D printer, material to feed the printer, a computer, and an Internet connection can download and fabricate a mind boggling number of goods. As the technology matures it will likely become common for basic goods to be replicated in homes instead of factories.

Social anarchists believed one day a worker revolution would occur. In their imagination they believed workers around the world, who finally became sick and tired of capitalist conditions, would rise up, seize the means of production, and usher in a world free of oppression. Things haven’t worked out that way and, if current technology trends are any indicator, things will not work out that way. The revolution won’t be violent, it won’t involve fighting in the streets, it won’t involved people rising up and overthrowing the governments of the world. What the revolution will involve is the continuous decentralization of power. Technology will continue to evolve in a manner that empowers individuals to separate themselves from their rulers. Powerful corporations who have enjoyed protection from competition through the state’s decrees will lose their power as an ever growing number of people are able to replicate their goods from the safety of their own homes. Enforcing patents and regulations will become impossible. As people begin to fabricate needed goods themselves the large corporations and the state will bring in less wealth. People will no longer be forced to buy goods from politically connected corporations or pay sales tax to the state.

The world is changing in a way that power is becoming more decentralized. Eventually, if technological trends continue, the concept of centralized power will be all but extinct.

Demonstrating the Importance of Tor

I’ve discussed the importance of Tor in fighting erroneous legislation but haven’t had any excellent demonstrations of Tor’s effectiveness in fighting the state’s continuous Internet power grabs. Russia has given me a perfect demonstration of the importance Tor holds:

A Russian law passed in November 2012 aimed at blacklisting sites promoting drug use has apparently just blocked the popular drug education website Erowid.org for certain users in the country according to a post on Reddit. A Russian government site listing prohibited sites shows that Erowid was added to the register earlier this month and was blocked on February 23. Russian user GreatfulListener says it is only “a matter of time” before the block affects more Russian internet service providers.

Erowid remains available in Russia via the Tor network. In fact, the Russian Tor community has undergone significant growth over the last year. RAMP, the Russian Anonymous MarketPlace, is now providing a leading Russian alternative to the English-speaking Silk Road.

Russia has begun blocking websites related to drug use. If history teaches us anything it’s that Russia will likely increase its censorship powers in the coming years. Fortunately the blocked site, Erowid, can still be accessed by Russians through Tor. Although I primarily discuss hidden services Tor is also very important in bypassing censorship of websites outside of the Tor network. Many countries block access to websites deemed undesirable but Tor works by sending traffic through exit nodes that are located in different countries, countries where the site being access may not be blocked.

The remainder of the article discusses the Russian Anonymous Marketplace (RAMP), a hidden service where Russians can perform anonymous transactions with Bitcoins. It’s akin to Silk Road, which I’ve discussed before. RAMP, like Silk Road, demonstrate that markets cannot be suppressed and that people will always find ways around state prohibitions. Today Tor and Bitcoins are integral tools for individuals wanting to avoid state prohibitions and censorship, which is why I believe it’s important to ensure these technologies become more widespread.

Issuing Prison Sentences to Justify Charges

Aaron Swartz was facing 35 years in prison for the “crime” of making copies of academic works. These charges were likely a factor in his decision to end his own life. A life was basically destroyed to uphold intellectual property laws, which are destined to die sooner or later. What makes this case even more absurd is that it appears as though the prosecutors wanted to cage Swartz, not because of his actions but, to justify the charges:

Some congressional staffers left the briefing with the impression that prosecutors believed they needed to convict Swartz of a felony that would put him in jail for a short sentence in order to justify bringing the charges in the first place, according to two aides with knowledge of the briefing.

I think this demonstrates one of the biggest issues with the United States so-called justice system, it’s not based on justice. Justice would have required waiting for Swartz to commit a crime but the prosecutors used previous writings by Swartz to claim he intended to commit a crime:

A Justice Department representative told congressional staffers during a recent briefing on the computer fraud prosecution of Internet activist Aaron Swartz that Swartz’s “Guerilla Open Access Manifesto” played a role in the prosecution, sources told The Huffington Post.

Swartz’s 2008 manifesto said sharing information was a “moral imperative” and advocated for “civil disobedience” against copyright laws pushed by corporations “blinded by greed” that led to the “privatization of knowledge.”

“We need to take information, wherever it is stored, make our copies and share them with the world. We need to take stuff that’s out of copyright and add it to the archive,” Swartz wrote in the manifesto. “We need to buy secret databases and put them on the Web. We need to download scientific journals and upload them to file sharing networks. We need to fight for Guerilla Open Access.”

Effectively the Department of Justice (DoJ) (talk about Orwellian doublespeak) brought their charges against Swartz because of something he wrote in 2008 and insisted on prison time because they felt it was necessary to justify the charges. This admittance by the DoJ also shows that censorship exists in this country, it’s just not overt. If you write something that the state disagrees with you will generally not be shutdown, blacklisted, or otherwise punished. What will happen is the state will bide its time until you do something that it believes is a prosecutable offense or usable to bully you into a plea bargain. At that point the state will use your previous works to generate more severe charges in which to hang you with. By using Swartz’s previous writings as justification for charging him the DoJ has sent a message that political dissidents can and will be punished. It’s an ultimatum. Either keep silent and avoid speaking out against the state or face the state’s wrath when it decides to finally descend upon you. In other words, shut up, slave.

A tip of the hat goes to TarenSK for this information.

Who Will Build the Broadband

Without the state who will build the broadband? Apparently the people who want to use it:

Look outside of your window: if you see miles of farmland, chances are you have terrible internet service. That’s because major telecommunications companies don’t think it’s worth the investment to bring high-speed broadband to sparsely populated areas. But like most businesses, farms increasingly depend on the internet to pay bills, monitor the market and communicate with partners. In the face of a sluggish connection, what’s a group of farmers to do?

Grow their own, naturally.

That’s what the people of Lancashire, England, are doing. Last year, a coalition of local farmers and others from the northwestern British county began asking local landowners if they could use their land to begin laying a brand-new community-owned high-speed network, sparing them the expense of tearing up roads. Then, armed with shovels and backhoes, the group, called Broadband for the Rural North, or B4RN (it’s pronounced “barn”), began digging the first of what will be approximately 180,000 meters of trenches and filling them with fiber-optic cable, all on its own.

The next step, after raising half a million pounds from shareholders, is to convince Lancastrians to pony up about fifty dollars a month for internet service. (Those who invest £1500 or more can get a year’s free service, a tax credit of 30%, and the option to sell the entire investment back in 2016 at full value.) This isn’t AOL dial-up: customers will have access to a blazing fast 1 gigabit connection, something that many city-dwellers, myself included, would covet.

Regardless of what statists tell us people can accomplish great things without the assistance of fear mongering war hawks.