3D-printed gun schematics surface on BitTorrent after takedown order

By Drew Prindle May 10, 2013

cody_wilson_3d_printed_gun The saga of the 3D-printed gun continued today – and this time it was the federal government firing a shot across the bow. After Defense Distributed released plans for a working 3D-printed gun last weekend, the US State Department demanded that the group remove the 3D-printed gun schematics from its website, citing possible arms-trafficking violations. The blueprints for the Liberator pistol were downloaded more 100,000 times in only a few days, which clearly made a few people in Washington uneasy.

The State Department’s response comes as no surprise, as politicians were making moves to outlaw 3D printed guns just hours after the files were made available online. This isn’t the first time creator and self-described “crypto-anarchist” Cody Wilson has been met with opposition to his project. In case you haven’t been keeping up with the develops, here’s a quick rundown to get you up to speed:

June 2012: Wilson seeks funding for his “Wiki Weapon” project on crowdfunding site IndieGoGo, gathering upwards of $2,000
August 2012: IndieGoGo suspends Wilson’s funding campaign, citing a Terms of Service violation. Wilson subsequently begins accepting donations on his own website via PayPal and Bitcoin.
September 2012: Wilson meets funding goal of $20,000, and purchases a high-end Stratsys uPrint SE 3D printer to begin developing a prototype
October 2012: Stratasys repossesses the printer, stating that it does not condone the use of its machinery to violate federal firearms laws
March 2013: Wilson obtains a federal firearms manufacturer license, buys a new printer, and resumes his work
May 2013: First shots are fired from Wilson’s 3D printed “Liberator” handgun
May 5th, 2013: 3D blueprints for The Liberator are made available online at DefCad.org
May 10th, 2013: State Department issues takedown order. Files then surface on popular BitTorrent site ThePirateBay.

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Defense Distributed has complied with the State Department’s orders by removing the Liberator blueprints from its site, but it seems there’s no putting the cat back in the bag. The files have begun to surface on BitTorrent sites hosted outside of the US, where the State Department has no jurisdiction. At time of writing, the 3D file for The Liberator has well over 2,000 seeds on ThePirateBay.

Stay tuned for more info as the issue develops.

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Emerging Tech

Former Digital Trends Contributor

Drew Prindle is an award-winning writer, editor, and storyteller who currently serves as Senior Features Editor for Digital…

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