zlacker

>>ptorro+(OP)
I think it's interesting to note that not only is there precedent for this type of "blocking technology that prevents the printing of certain things"[1], but it's also inconsequential and uncontroversial enough that most of the people here obviously have never even heard of it.

We lost the ability to print $50 bills with our HPs[2] and it had no noticeable negative impact on society. I'm not sure why losing the ability to print a gun with our Prusas will be any different.

[1] - https://www.scienceabc.com/eyeopeners/cant-photocopy-scan-cu...

[2] - https://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Printers-Archive-Read-Only/Won...

>>slg+CN1
Other people have already pointed out the differences between implementing a check for a specific banned print and a vague categorical ban. It would be like if printer manufacturers weren't just asked to prevent the printing of US dollars, but anything that looks like money, having an ability to detect if something is money-like based on look and feel alone, without relying on an existing database or hardcoded watermarks.

Your implication makes me think that you assume that this useful-yet-not-overreaching detection tech is possible. Do you have any ideas for how this would be implemented? Because in my mind, the only way to ensure compliance would be either a manual check (uplink to the manufacturer or relevant government authority, where an employee or a model trained on known gun models tries to estimate the probability of a print being part of a gun) or a deterministic algorithm that makes blanket bans on anything remotely gun-like (pipe-like parts, parts where any mechanical action is similar to anything that could be in a gun). These scenarios seem to be both a lot more annoying and a lot more invasive. There's no negative consequences for tuning detection to always err on the side of caution and flood the user with false-positive refusals to print. Both scenarios are obviously a lot more involved and complicated than a basic algorithm checking if you're trying to print an image of a US dollar. Therefore I don't see a reason why drawing this comparison is useful. The only thing these implementations have in common is that they're detecting something.