3D Printer Surveillance

New York is contemplating a bill that adds surveillance to 3D printers:

New York’s 20262027 executive budget bill (S.9005 / A.10005) includes language that should alarm every maker, educator, and small manufacturer in the state. Buried in Part C is a provision requiring all 3D printers sold or delivered in New York to include “blocking technology.” This is defined as software or firmware that scans every print file through a “firearms blueprint detection algorithm” and refuses to print anything it flags as a potential firearm or firearm component.

I get the policy goals here, but the solution just won’t work. It’s the same problem as DRM: trying to prevent general-purpose computers from doing specific things. Cory Doctorow wrote about it in 2018 and—more generally—spoke about it in 2011.

Tags: 3d printers, guns, laws, privacy, surveillance

Posted on February 12, 2026 at 7:01 AM • 19 Comments

Comments

BCS • February 12, 2026 9:50 AM

Would the world be better off or worse off if the lawmakers actually understood what they were trying to regulate?

On the one hand, there would be fewer laws proposed that will never have any chance of being anything more than expensive virtue signaling. On the other, it will be harder to measure the hubris of the law makers.

Also, I think xkcd had a nice concise take on this: https://xkcd.com/1425/

RightToComputeRightToPrint • February 12, 2026 10:20 AM

The maker community ought to get a lot more vocal about this, remind the legislators that a 3d printer can be cobbled together from basic parts by just about anyone. Any printer infected* with this sort of “DRM” can have its control board ripped out and replaced by an arduino with a couple of stepper dual h bridge boards which can run existing freedom-respecting firmware. There’s no need for advanced firmware hacking to rewrite a DRM-infected machine’s existing firmware, just a full transplant of the circuit board. The community needs to make it very clear that this sort of tyranny will not be obeyed. If lawmakers want to clamp down on gun violence they should target the supply of ammunition for restriction. Printed plastic isn’t a suitable material for something which has to survive as harsh an environment as the chamber of a gun must cope with, but whereas people have occasionally printed items which they call guns (but which are frankly more dangerous to the maniac firing them than to any intended target), nobody has ever or will ever print the bullet-plus-propellant combination required for a round of ammo. If the crooks running New York (and the crooks running Washington state too, they are trying the same thing, I doubt it is a coincidence, the pro planned obsolescence lobby must have gotten at both legislatures at once) want to push for this, they need to find themselves being frustrated at every turn by people who are cleverer than them in every way. I wonder if New York will soon be home to shops selling three entirely separate products,each of which definitely isn’t supposed to be bolted to another even though the holes would line up perfectly, one of which is a handheld plastic extrusion 3d pen, another is a hotplate and the other of which is an x-y-z linear stage assembly (core-xy, bedslinger, whatever). If I was in that benighted state, no way would I ever obey, this, along with protecting the right to general purpose computing (another Doctorow talking point) is a hill to die upon. The right to be able to make little plastic trinkets (ok, there’s a lot more use than trinkets but everything one makes is still a plastic item, plastic is great for little brackets and adaptors and household modifications and small hobby projects. NYC tyrants, please understand, plastic is still no good for guns) is more important than the supposed authority of a government.

*infected really is the right word, because the only way anything like that can happen is by a printer uploading every file to the cloud to ask for permission whether that file is ok, and it won’t be able to stop people making bad thinga, all it will do is prevent people making repair and replacement parts for shoddily made consumer items with planned obsolescence

Rontea • February 12, 2026 10:39 AM

Requiring 3D printers to include “blocking technology” for firearm components is a classic example of security theater that risks far more than it solves. Once you embed surveillance and control mechanisms into general-purpose fabrication devices, you are sliding toward the same brittle, easily bypassed model that DRM imposed on computers. The danger isn’t just that it won’t stop people determined to print weapons—it’s that it creates a framework for monitoring and restricting all forms of 3D printing, chilling innovation and personal freedom. Security controls that are invasive and unenforceable ultimately weaken trust without meaningfully improving safety.

Tony • February 12, 2026 12:05 PM

Isn’t there already a precedent. Colour copiers won’t make a copy of something they identify as “currency”. [Not that this is any kind of good reason to mess with 3-D printers].

Agammamon • February 12, 2026 12:23 PM

Do these people not know that there are plans for easy building from base parts some pretty capable 3d printers? To the point that if you can assemble legos and manage a pre-built 3d printer you have the skills to build and operate your own.

https://vorondesign.com/

That’s just one of the options.

Worst case, you buy a shitty 3d printer to print out the plastic parts for your really good build-your-own printer – no gun check necessary.

And what are they going to do about desktop CNC?

Clive Robinson • February 12, 2026 12:26 PM

@ BCS, ALL,

You ask,

“Would the world be better off or worse off if the lawmakers actually understood what they were trying to regulate?”

People forget if you give someone power then they will use it regardless of ethics or morality.

It’s one of the reasons we have “makework” so people can feel that they have status but in reality are just being given hand outs.

It’s part of the,

“Laws are for the obayance of fools and the guidance of wise men.”

The problem is many do not know which they are…

Hence you assume the worst and hope you get better.

Some years ago I noted here two things had to happen to legislators,

1, Every law even that for murder would require a “sunset clause”, such that it would require to be debated and revised (the EU has this for regulations).

2, The money and status should be taken out of politics by total transparency.

Hopefully then without lobbying or future pay off “nest feathering” legislation would not be for sale by behind the scenes auctions.

Agammamon • February 12, 2026 12:31 PM

Tony • February 12, 2026 12:05 PM

Isn’t there already a precedent. Colour copiers won’t make a copy of something they identify as “currency”. [Not that this is any kind of good reason to mess with 3-D printers].

Yes. But at least with that you have a fairly limited sample of currencies to store in memory – there’s a massive variety of ways to make a bullet go bang.

Its like ‘microstamping’ – something that is theoretically possible but no one knows how to make it work. But politicians like to just shrug their shoulders and say ‘nerd harder’ as if that is all it takes. They do not live in the real world.

Clive Robinson • February 12, 2026 12:47 PM

@ ALL,

Do not forget the lessons of E2EE!

The legislators wanted the impossible to “protect the children” or similar nonsense.

When even their own security forces told them it was a very bad idea they did not give up.

It was only when “client side Scanning” of sufficient capability built irremovably into the OS became a reality did they let up on fighting against E2EE.

This same battle and outcome is what is going to happen with 3D printing.

Because it’s not about “think of the children” that’s just the excuse. It’s in reality about protecting corporate profits and the energing,

“You will own nothing economy”

Where you will have to work yourself to death just to make the 1% of the 1% into “Rent claiming Barons”.

Because your future is not as “slaves” but “surfs” unless they find as Cotton Barons did that slaves could be used as collateral to raise money to buy more to gain unearned rental income…

If you have not seen the signs of this building then,

“You’ve been to busy on fools errands.”

Which is part of the plan.

Jordan Brown • February 12, 2026 12:55 PM

Colour copiers won’t make a copy of something they identify as “currency”.

Currency is generally specially marked with a pattern that copiers recognize.

Ref: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EURion_constellation

Kevin • February 12, 2026 2:03 PM

Highly capable color printers and copiers can recognize EURion, a very simple pattern to deny printing currency (and certain other documents). It’s also embedded in Photoshop, but not in open source image editors.

This (and the “yellow dot” tracking) did not come about through lawmaking, but rather was a voluntary measure by the printer engine manufacturers due to political pressure.

Anonymous • February 12, 2026 2:24 PM

If they really wanted to make an impact on gun violence, or even a non-impact on gun violence, they could start with regulating real guns. Perhaps this is protectionism for established arms manufacturers?

lurker • February 12, 2026 3:09 PM

@Anonymous

Quite right Sir. But could you please explain to me the purpose of the first and third commas in the Second Amendment? I know some States ommitted them in ratification.

Smith • February 12, 2026 6:46 PM

This again?

Anyone remember the laws for “automatic braking in cars”? The car has to recognize it’s going to hit something, and automatically brake. I appreciate President Trump canceling that.

My car has an imminent collision alarm. It goes off all the time. Curvy roads, with concrete dividers or just a double yellow line, sensor sees the concrete or another car or even just a leaf, and warns me. But it doesn’t brake! Hasn’t helped me yet. Just a distraction. Lots of false alarms. But if it had auto-braked, cars behind me would have plowed straight through me. My car wouldn’t have lasted a month.

Government law-makers don’t understand it’s an impossible problem. Same with 3D-printing… Oh they could block the file based on a checksum. And somebody modifies the file ever so slightly, and now it works…

Idiots!

Winter • February 12, 2026 11:38 PM

@lurker, anonymous

the purpose of the first and third commas in the Second Amendment?

A lot of linguistic ingenuity can be unleashed on the Second Amendment to tease apart the original intentions of the authors.

But that is entirely unnecessary.

The mere fact that the amendment starts with A well regulated Militia, being necessary for a free state should be clear enough about how the drafters of the amendment saw the regulation of gun ownership.

Any interpretation that ignores these first four words betrays the Constitution.[1] And it must be said, many betray it with the fervor of the true fanatic.

[1] This mechanism of ignoring unwanted parts of sacred texts in extremist reasoning is widespread. For instance, Christians worship the ten commandments, but many also publicly support the death penalty (thou shalt not kill), pray to statues, crosses (make carved images, idols), and advocate tax evasion (thou shalt not steal, Render to Caesar…).

V • February 13, 2026 5:12 PM

Based on the care manufacturers take for commodity goods a 3D printer that is online could probably be hacked to ONLY print guns.

Chris • February 15, 2026 4:10 PM

Don’t you guys have a some kind of amendment making a law like that constitutionally invalid?

Anon • February 16, 2026 9:23 PM

@RightToComputeRightToPrint :

Keep in mind that some 3D printers print in metal, too.

Nothing like a machined forging, though.

Clive Robinson • February 17, 2026 2:39 AM

@ Anon, RightToComp…, ALL,

“Keep in mind that some 3D printers print in metal, too.”

And some will print in wax…

Thus any one can make negatives for green sand or lost wax casting processes.

I did not really want to talk about this because some idiot would come along with a “Je vous accuse” as they have in the past.

But the point is most of the parts of a gun do not require to have very much strength so do not need to be made of metal at all…

The few that do usually only require very basic machining at most. Remember that during WWII the British designed “STEN gun” which was a very basic “blow back” submachine gun was called “the plumbers delight” for a reason,

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sten

Many others such as the SMG had the breach and bolt made as machined castings have been mostly metal stampings or simple castings. Thus the use of a laser cutter to make many of the parts that can then be “simply welded” by equipment many use for repairing cars, garden and even household furniture creating art and similar.

With only the breach and barrel being metal that required finishing and only needed minimal machine shop tools if even that… Because if you are talking about a “one shot” even moulded plastic will suffice for what is in effect a “shot gun”. And anyone who has been an “off shore day boat sailor” will realise this from the package of emergency flares they carry.

The simple fact is these laws are either a nonsense of political stupidity or there is an ulterior motive of which two are immediately obvious and mutually beneficial for those they benefit.

One such being the gun lobby themselves. Making guns is for the most part highly profitable and currently highly lucrative. Since DMCA and section 1201 the US has been pushing such equivalent legislation into other nations legislation via “trade agreement” negotiations. In effect it creates monopolies like John Deere and subsequently motorcar manufacturers looking to stop “right to repair”, “second hand sales” and making “rent seeking for use” a new lucrative revenue source[1].

As basic gun design and manufacture does not benefit from DMCA 1201 they’ve felt “left out of the game”. This legislation will in effect do the same for them. That is they want both low cost 3D printing and laser cutting outlawed to protect their profits in a highly lucrative market as do many other price gouging corporates.

But who are the “others” that would mutually benefit?

It’s no secret that there is a battle between the NRA backed by all sorts of questionable entities including Putin’s Spys, and certain US political entities who want the 2ndA rights curtailed in any way possible. Attempts to have “gun registers” and similar always get challenged and SCOTUS tends to go 2nd A so… Thus having all sorts of restrictions on 3D printing and laser cutting at home by “client side scanning” that does an “ET Phone Home” will give them this to a reasonable degree (enough to get search warrants etc against those who can not defend themselves).

So yeh there is a lot at stake for vested interests and corporate monopolists and they will fight for this with lobbying that can not be matched $4$ so other methods have to be used. This is a “political Hot Potato” which is why I did not want to talk about it originally because it would have derailed the thread when new.

[1] I’ve previously linked to a video of Cory Doctorow’s talk on DMCA 1201 and the very real need to get rid of it. Sadly I can not find it currently so you’ll have to make do with the less entertaining written version,

https://pluralistic.net/2025/01/15/beauty-eh/

JG5 • February 17, 2026 10:44 AM

@Winter – I wrote a note to Orrin Hatch in the very early 1980’s and he kindly sent me a copy of his study of the Second Amendment. The details of 43+/- years ago have grown dim, but the broad strokes are that the intent was protecting both a collective and an individual right. The underlying bedrock is a right to effective self-defense and defense of others. This captures the title and citation markers:

Senate Report On The Right To Keep And Bear Arms
https://www.gunowners.org/fs0303/

You wouldn’t have to read the headlines very often to conclude that there are too many crazy people with guns in the US, many of them employed by Fed.gov. My understanding, such as it is, is that “well regulated” would at the time have been interpreted as “properly functioning.” The Framers would have been hard-pressed to foresee 50-round magazines on AR15’s being used to mow down schoolchildren. Even though they had been parties to mowing down Native Americans. Everywhere you look, there are fundamental trade-offs between individual rights and collective rights. The politicians are arbitraging all of the trade-offs.

We are not going to solve the problem, but it is an interesting puzzle piece in the overall security architecture. Security is a system of interlocking systems. Computer/data/communication security is an important piece of that architecture. It is interesting that as the technology for additive and subtractive manufacturing are advancing, with costs driven down by mass manufacture and the microcircuit/integrated circuit revolution, that we come to a problem with ease of manufacturing guns. That isn’t what scares me.

I have written before about “projected intent” and the real problem is programmable devices, like guns with legs that can sneak through the brush and Find, Fix, Finish as @Clive would have it. A more common example is drones, and you probably can search “miniature drones” in the archives or on GlueTube and find a chilling video by Stuart Russell. As well as some of my correspondence with him. Guns can only project intent over milliseconds to seconds, and millimeters to kilometers. Voyager has projected intent over a billion miles and 40+/- years. The collision of human creativity with our dark tribal past and the tendency to hate easily could cause extinction. I am pretty sure that I have written about “grinspoon’s gauntlet” where political maturity is tested against the capability for mass destruction. The US is stuck in a period of political immaturity.

I am interested in proofs that the human experiment doesn’t end in extinction. The Second Amendment was an admirable effort to prevent extinction of the colonists, but advances in lethality have made guns a much bigger danger to society than they were 250+/- years ago. You can find some good examples in movies of “projected intent,” but the public perception of the hazards still seems to be very low. I have warmed up to the idea of gun control and may have advocated brain-scanning in the past. I would start with Congress and the Executive Branch. And disqualify anyone with white matter disease. Alternatively, you could start with anyone who carries lethal weapons to deliver government services.

I wasn’t surprised that drones are now required to broadcast what amounts to a license plate. The logical extension of that is that all programmable devices have to broadcast proof that they are not running compromised code. Two examples of compromised code spring to mind. One damaged some gas centrifuges. The other extracts rents for repairs. I am not optimistic that the solutions will be easy or affordable.

There is a fundamental conflict between security and the right to private property. There also is a fundamental conflict between government and security. As PJ O’Rourke taught us, “Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys.”

3D Printer Surveillance

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