California passes bill declaring death-by-algorithm to 3D-printed ghost guns
www.theregister.com
Last-hour amendments aim to allay privacy concerns, but broad scepticism about feasibility remains

So much for the constitution

  • DaddleDew@lemmy.worldEnglish
    57·
    12 days ago

    The standards will not mandate perfect efficacy – they will allow for “an acceptably low level of evasion” against a bank of identified design files.

    They’ve just admitted that it won’t work. It will rely on a bank of banned designs which means anyone can just modify them until the algorithm doesn’t recognize it as such while still being functional or simply make their own designs. Whoever finds a way to evade those restrictions will pass on the word.

    Sucks that this will act as a push to lock down 3D printer firmware for everyone else though. Mass enshitification inbound. The only hope I see is that 3D printer manufacturers will simply get out of California as a result instead because the expense of developing such an algorithm and the risk of fines if it is not performing well enough are too great to be worth it.

    • ilinamorato@lemmy.worldEnglish
      18·
      12 days ago

      Any such algorithm would be patched out of a jailbroken version of the firmware in minutes. 3D printers are already running on FOSS, so this is worse than useless. Anyone who wants to print a working gun will be able to do so trivially.

        • ilinamorato@lemmy.worldEnglish
          6·
          12 days ago

          I don’t think they know what it’s designed to stop. Seems like this is pretty clearly just a piece of conspicuous legislation passed just to make it look like they’re actually doing something.