
“Printcrime” by Cory Doctorow - DoubleMalt
http://craphound.com/?p=573
======
brudgers
A few months ago, I read Cory Doctrow's _Makers_. Having grown up in Orlando,
rat as villain was blissful reading. Earlier this spring, I pulled _Little
Brother_ off the shelf at the library. As it happened, my son was just
finishing _Slaughter House Five: or the Children's Crusade_ at the very point
I realized that he might enjoy its young adult tenor more than I would enjoy
finishing it out of obligation.

Ever since _Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy_ 's cover in my hand grabbed his
attention at the library [following up quickly with a purchased copy of the
complete series helped seal the deal] last winter, I've been on a roll for
recommending books with him. _Player Piano_ was the only thing close to
_Hitch-Hiker's Guide_ I could think of, and his finishing it was how we got to
_Slaughter-House Five_. Indeed, the mentioning of last year's suggestion of
_Sword of Shannara_ has been rendered less painful between us by the recent
success.

Anyway, he really dug _Little Brother_. So much so he made sure to take it to
middle-school everyday and walk out to the bus stop "reading" it, in the
morning. As fortune would have it, the evening of the very day he finished it,
I was at the library and what should be on the new fiction rack but
_Homeland_. He finished that, too.

Now one of the questions that comes around on Ask HN is how do I get my child
interested in programming, and I don't think you do, really other than perhaps
by modeling behavior, and I've said as much from time to time. But, reading
Doctorow sparked my son to check out the computer section at the library -
that trip was with mom and he came back with an "Intro to turning a computer
on" type book. A couple of days later it was in the back-to-the-library stack.

Then about two weeks ago, he asked me if I had a book about Lisp because that
was what he had really been looking for at the library. Well of course I did,
and he knew it - Graham's _Ansi Common Lisp_ has been floating around the
house since I picked it up used from Amazon last August. So a few nights a
week he sits and reads and takes notes for a half hour all on his own and in
his own way, which is of course the best way to come to any adult activity for
a young person.*

*OK so I did Youtube the first part of the first SICP lecture video for him on our way to a soccer tournament a week earlier. Until he fell asleep about 15 minutes in. As he was dozing off, however, we got to the part where Sussman says that what we can program is only limited by what we can imagine. That got him to stop nodding his head.

~~~
e12e
My recommendation would be to get him started with something like python and
pygame. Or perhaps racket, eg:

[http://docs.racket-
lang.org/draw/overview.html#(part._.Lines...](http://docs.racket-
lang.org/draw/overview.html#\(part._.Lines_and_.Simple_.Shapes\))

Or even processing.

Some of my early programming was messing with graphics -- first in BASIC and
Assembler on the Amiga -- later on a Casio calculator (mixing the worst of
assembler and BASIC, with performance lower than our old VIC20) -- using the
book "Mathematical Toursit"[1] as guide.

I was very proud when after 4 hours I could look at the screen and see a
black-and-white mandelbrot :-)

[1] <http://www.amazon.com/dp/0716732505>

~~~
curiousdannii
<https://code.google.com/p/pybotwar/> Pybotwar is fun!

------
tstactplsignore
I am often confused by how quickly the futurist community jumps from "machines
which mold plastic shapes" to "machines which are capable of creating a
laptop". Surely every modern electronic requires an enormous number of
materials, some very rare, some in minute quantities, and some of which may
require chemically and/or thermally active reactions in their implementation.

Do many people genuinely think that we are close to this kind of machine?
Because to me I simply see far too many hurdles for it to even become
realistic. I know everyone is excited about 3-D printers, but within the
current constraints of reality I cannot see how the current ones can do much
more than print small plastic mechanical parts.

~~~
tenpoundhammer
Please research "fun" and "story", I think you will find out why fun stories
are often based on things which may not be feasible.

~~~
cowpewter
Or "speculative fiction" - which often uses currently impossible or
implausible technology in order to make a point about society itself.

------
DoubleMalt
I remembered the story when I was reading the musings of the Australian police
about regulating the cad files.

As soon as 3d printers will be able to replicate themselves, every regulation
will be moot. Information always finds a way to propagate.

~~~
tvon
> _As soon as 3d printers will be able to replicate themselves, every
> regulation will be moot._

I don't get this. In theory, if it were illegal to print "Item #325" having
200 printers doesn't make it any less illegal to print "Item #325".

> _Information always finds a way to propagate._

Doesn't this presuppose that no secret has ever been kept?

~~~
DoubleMalt
>> As soon as 3d printers will be able to replicate themselves, every
regulation will be moot.

> I don't get this. In theory, if it were illegal to print "Item #325" having
> 200 printers doesn't make it any less illegal to print "Item #325".

It might be illegal. But the law would be unenforceable.

>> Information always finds a way to propagate.

> Doesn't this presuppose that no secret has ever been kept?

Valid point. What I meant is information that is out in the open. The cad
files by Defense Distributed where published intentionally. You need a North
Korean style regime to significantly slow down the propagation of such
material.

~~~
e12e
Most places you're not allowed to carry a knife in crowds. Doesn't really
matter if you've made it yourself or not.

~~~
Dylan16807
You're not? I know some places ban very specific elements of 'knifes' that
have nothing to do with how pokey they are for political reasons, but there
are areas that actually ban having a knife?

------
angersock
So, one wonders--how does anyone who detests the idea of getting arrested for
printing things and having printer tech confiscated simultaneously detest the
idea of printing weapons with which to defend yourself and your means of
production?

~~~
livnev
Weapons are violence. There's no room for violence in the future.

~~~
peterkelly
> _There's no room for violence in the future_

I'm sure humanity will find some

------
MarkHarmon
The story seems relevant due to recent news articles about people printing
guns. It makes me wonder about what other printable items will be
criminalized. Also gets me thinking about the materials used by 3d printers.
Right now plastic is the most popular, but who knows, maybe someday it will be
"goop".

------
aqrashik
If you prefer listening to it rather than reading, printcrime was in an Escape
Pod Flash piece a few years back...

<http://escapepod.org/2007/01/09/ep-flash-printcrime/>

------
metastew
While we're on this subject, what's the best DIY printer for an eager beginner
like me? Last time I checked, it was Prusa Mendel, but there's been a lot of
new additions to the market since then.

~~~
iamwil
According to people in the reprap channels, it'd be:

MendelMax1.5(or 2.0 if you don't care to source it yourself) or the Prusa i3.

As for kits, people seem to like Ultimaker or Lulzbot's AO-10x.

If you'd like a deltabot, there's the Kossel and SeeMeCNC's Rostock Max.

I wrote a buying guide a few weeks back. You might want to check it out.

[http://blog.cubehero.com/2013/04/12/what-you-need-to-know-
ab...](http://blog.cubehero.com/2013/04/12/what-you-need-to-know-about-
buying-a-3d-printer/)

------
Clotho
Interesting. Is he no longer part of boing boing?

~~~
adventureloop
You probably should have read the first line of text on that page.

> This story appears in my collection Overclocked: Stories of the Future
> Present, 2007

craphound.com has been Cory's website for as long as I can remember.

~~~
SonicSoul
this kind of reply makes me cringe.. i had a manager once who would do
something similar on rare occasions i asked about something he already stated
in the past. he'd re-paste it into the chat window (sometimes twice).. as if
fostering proof that i must be retarded for missing a nugget of his eternal
wisdom. the only thing that kept me alive was collecting such snippets for
eventual book or at least a blog post about how much he sucked at being a
manager.

this was one of many valuable lessons of what not to do. ever.

~~~
C1D
I would love to see the end result of your book/blog post :P

~~~
peterkelly
As SonicSoul commented on the 12th of April, this will be published early next
year. Or weren't you paying attention?

------
maeon3
After "printcrime" there will be: "look-crime" where you are caught peeking
into or learning about how the insides of a system work on a base level, so
you can replicate it without the backdoors, spyware, government mothership
authorizations, credentials, alarms, and limitations.

Close that vehicle/system lid citizen, there are trade secrets in there, step
away, don't make me Taze you.

~~~
mindcrime
_After "printcrime" there will be: "look-crime"_

And after that, there will be "mind-crime".

~~~
swatkat
May I quote George Orwell: "thoughtcrime" [1]

By the way, a very relevant username :)

[1]<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thoughtcrime>

~~~
mindcrime
_By the way, a very relevant username :)_

I'm just waiting for thoughtcriminal[1] to post in this thread, actually.

[1]: <https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=thoughtcriminal>

------
maeon3
This is reminiscent of Gnu's "Right to read".

<http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html>

What is the solution if a person uses a printer to print devices that are used
for what most people consider criminal behavior? For example, someone printing
high performing secret remote detonating bomb materials for political enemy
rallies. After they serve the prison sentence. Do you let them own an open
source printer again and let them use it without restriction?

With the power to print "anything" at low cost comes a tremendous power to
kill thousands, even millions of people easily. How do you find the balance
between freedom to let people print anything their hearts desire, and
restrictions to stop the evil people from using that tremendous power for
great evil?

~~~
betterunix
Change a few words and see if it still makes sense: what is the solution if a
person uses their garage to make things for criminal purposes? If they get out
of prison, do you still allow them to have a garage?

~~~
freehunter
See that's not the same though, unless the garage directly led to making the
crime possible. Change a few words and see if it still makes sense: what if
the person used their life for criminal purposes? If they get out of prison do
you still allow them to have life?

A garage is a place, not a tool.

~~~
hcarvalhoalves
It's exactly the same thing.

What defines a crime is _intention_. For instance, firing a gun is not a crime
per se. Or in the case of the United States, even building one isn't illegal,
since no one made a law to make it so. [1]

On the other hand, attempt to shoot, shooting or killing someone, are all
possibly crimes, depending if there's intention and the circumstances (e.g.,
self-defense).

So in your example, if someone makes materials for political enemies, first
you need to prove intention or connection to the crimes committed by these
parties (I'm assuming you don't mean illegal/controlled materials here). Then,
when this person is sentenced, the judge can rule about restricting access to
these materials anymore (for instance, restricting him from getting a job in
industry). It's the same case as hackers sentenced for years away from
computers.

[1] [http://www.cracked.com/article_17016_7-items-you-wont-
believ...](http://www.cracked.com/article_17016_7-items-you-wont-believe-are-
actually-legal.html)

~~~
AnthonyMouse
>It's the same case as hackers sentenced for years away from computers.

Which always was, and remains, complete nonsense.

If someone steals a car, you don't prohibit them from driving their own car to
work after they return to society.

The analogy the proponents of this nonsense will present is that it's more
like lawyers being disbarred or bankers being prohibited from working in the
financial industry. But that analogy fails, because prohibiting you from using
a computer is not the analog of prohibiting you from being a lawyer or a
banker, it's the analog of denying access to the court system or the ability
to use money.

