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California’s New Bill Requires DOJ-Approved 3D Printers That Report on Themselves
(blog.adafruit.com)
this post was submitted on 19 Feb 2026
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Slicers are open source so anyone can and will remove surveillance malware from it.
Require printers to check digital signatures on STL files and have only approved slicers add those
Print the parts for a new printer on a cheap one, buy the hardware at a local hardware store or electronics store (or even strip the cheap one for most of the parts), and start printing in your favorite flavor of open source software. Or buy the printed pieces from someone or online and then buy and assemble the rest. That's what they do with guns to circumvent some of the gun laws, because the not quite finished pieces are not legally considered a gun.
All this would do is make people buy printers the way that they buy guns, ironically. And it still won't do anything about the so-called "ghost guns" anyway, because those are either legally bought guns with the serial number shaved off, or they're garage guns like the one used to assassinate Shinzo Abe.
So we're back to placing restrictions on the printers...