It is quite insane as it criminalizes a very specifc method of production. You can make an injection mold and produce the same part, but apparently using the same material using a slightly different process is not allowed.

However, this is California. Using pepper spray is allowed, but pepperballs are considered a tear gas grenade delivery device and illegal for use by civilians.

https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.sandiegouniontribu...

Yes, you can own pepperball launchers. You just can't possess or use pepperballs:

https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fshop.pepperball.com%2Fpr...

So here, less than lethal weapons allowed for use by civilians go pepper spray, tasers. After that you go straight to firearms.

My opinion is that they are having their cake and eating it too:

https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fleginfo.legislature.ca...

"(b) âoeFirearmâ has the same meaning as defined in subdivision (a) of Section 16520 of the Penal Code.
(c) âoeFirearm blocking technologyâ means hardware, firmware, or other integrated technological measures capable of ensuring a three-dimensional printer will not proceed to any print job unless the underlying three-dimensional printing file has been evaluated by a firearms blueprints detection algorithm and determined not to be a printing file that would produce a firearm or illegal firearm parts."

"(g) âoeIllegal firearm partsâ means a firearm precursor part and any part designed and intended for use in converting a semiautomatic weapon into a machine gun, including, but not limited to, a pistol convertor."

"(e) âoeFirearm precursor partâ has the same meaning as defined in Section 16531 of the Penal Code."

https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Flaw.justia.com%2Fcodes%2Fc...

"16520. (a) As used in this part, âoefirearmâ means a device, designed to be used as a weapon, from which is expelled through a barrel, a projectile by the force of an explosion or other form of combustion.

(b) As used in the following provisions, âoefirearmâ includes the frame or receiver of the weapon, including both a completed frame or receiver, or a firearm precursor part:"

"(c) As used in the following provisions, âoefirearmâ also includes a rocket, rocket propelled projectile launcher, or similar device containing an explosive or incendiary material, whether or not the device is designed for emergency or distress signaling purposes:"

https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Flaw.justia.com%2Fcodes%2Fc...

"16531. (a) âoeFirearm precursor partâ means any forging, casting, printing, extrusion, machined body or similar article that has reached a stage in manufacture where it may readily be completed, assembled or converted to be used as the frame or receiver of a functional firearm, or that is marketed or sold to the public to become or be used as the frame or receiver of a functional firearm once completed, assembled or converted."

So you could read it as written, and say "an 80% frame is illegal, in context of an additional part to convert a finished firearm from semi-automatic to fully automatic operation". Which is to say, something like a Glock switch/auto sear:

https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fapnews.com%2Farticle%2Fglo...

You could also read to say, well, in order to recognize when an 80% frame is being printed in that context, we also need to recognize anything that could be converted into a firearm in that context. There are plenty of remixes that use the glock parts kit for the fire control group and slide rail, and completely reimagine everything else to create a DIY PDW-style pistol.

More importantly, even if the bill is intended to be narrowly targeted, it creates
1) An enforcement regime implemented in software administered by the California DOJ, which looks suspiciously like the approach they use for regulating firearms,
2) Legal liabilities for manufacturers doing business in California,
3) A right to sue by any individual who can claim standing (they were impacted a failure to implement the law as written)

Once these three items are in place, I fully expect that others will attempt to bootstrap further provisions to expand scope of the law.

Of the three examples you gave (trigger, sights, barrel), I would say, looking at the above:

1. Trigger would fall under fire control group, and it depends on whether the software as implemented by a private company would regard the fire control group as a firearm, an illegal firearm part, or a precursor part.

2. Sights - probably not. Not part of the frame, not part of the fire control group.

3. Barrel - an interesting question. Based on my understanding, under US law, a barrel is not a firearm, nor would a barrel be considered a precursor part. However, you could have a firearm design that is a single shot breechloader, where the breech and the barrel are integrated. Would someone go as far as flagging tubes of certain diameters with or without rifling? Depends on who is doing the software implementation and what they decide to flag.

Unfortunately, you have the text of the law here:

"(3) The performance standards shall require that firearm blueprint detection algorithms have the capacity, with a high degree of accuracy, to do all of the following:
(A) Evaluate three-dimensional printing files, whether in the form of STL files or other computer-aided design files or geometric code.
(B) Detect and identify any such files that can be used to program a three-dimensional printer to produce a firearm or illegal firearm parts.
(C) Flag any disallowed files for rejection by a software control process.
(4) The performance standards shall require that, at a minimum, firearm blueprint detection algorithms have the capacity to utilize an inventory of disallowed firearm blueprint files that have been commonly downloaded or shared on public internet forums to detect those files and modified versions of those files.
(5) The department or other relevant state agency shall not require that a firearm blueprint detection algorithm produce a perfect success rate at detecting disallowed files. "

I read that to mean if the trigger, sights, and barrel (let's assume that there are desktop metal sintering printers for sake of argument, or that the law also includes CNC machining), are included in one of the "bad" firearm files (this is suspiciously sounding like the classifications of "assault weapons"), then they could be flagged and prevented from printing, and in fact - it sounds like updating detection algorithms to do so would be one of the ongoing requirements for compliance.

It would be interesting to test the law in the following way.

Instead of directly printing a desired part (say, the frame for a Glock clone, which holds the rails that turn it into a receiver), print a mold which can then be used using casting or injection molding to mass produce the desired part.

Text of the law:

https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fleginfo.legislature.ca...

As defined in the bill:

"(g) âoeIllegal firearm partsâ means a firearm precursor part and any part designed and intended for use in converting a semiautomatic weapon into a machine gun, including, but not limited to, a pistol convertor."

Definition of "firearm precursor part"

https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcalifornia.public.law%2F...

"(a)
âoeFirearm precursor partâ means any forging, casting, printing, extrusion, machined body or similar article that has reached a stage in manufacture where it may readily be completed, assembled or converted to be used as the frame or receiver of a functional firearm, or that is marketed or sold to the public to become or be used as the frame or receiver of a functional firearm once completed, assembled or converted."

It is interesting that by that definition, it appears that the law is creating a loophole - illegal parts includes a part that is not yet considered a firearm part, if a part which is illegal is involved - for example a semi-automatic to automatic conversion kit. In order to identify the precursor part when produced in conjuction with a semi-automatic to automatic conversion kit, you'd need to be able to identify the precursor part by itself.

By this definition, even a water gun could be considered an illegal part, if there is a process to convert it to a functioning firearm part (for example, dremeling channels to hold rails for the slide, and epoxying nuts to hold the hardware necessary to add the fire control group.) There's nothing in the law that says you have to be printing an actual firearm, or parts of a firearm, only that could be printing parts that eventually could be used to create a working firearm, even if the parts as currenly assembled, cannot work, and would not be able to work without further additional processing.

This section is what I would consider a red flag:

"(f) (1) A person who has suffered harm in California as a result of a violation of this section may bring an action in a court of competent jurisdiction to establish that a person has violated this section, and may seek compensatory damages as well as injunctive relief sufficient to prevent the person and any other defendant from further violating the law.
(2) The Attorney General, a county counsel, or a city attorney may bring an action in a court of competent jurisdiction to establish that a person has violated this section, and may seek a civil penalty not to exceed twenty-five thousand dollars ($25,000) for each violation, as well as injunctive relief sufficient to prevent the person and any other defendant from further violating the law.
(3) A prevailing plaintiff shall be entitled to recover reasonable attorneyâ(TM)s fees and costs."

You're now creating a new cottage industry for lawyers to sue people under this law. They don't even need to win, or have a decent case, they just need to threaten people into settling, as a successful court case allows them to charge for legal costs on top of the civil penalties and any injuctive relief.

Someone earlier in the thread talked about moving from a problem of "ghost guns" to a problem of "ghost printers". Literally this is shifting left - instead of targeting criminals who commit crimes, they're now criminalizing businesses and industries who sell to consumers in California. For legal liability reasons alone, I would assume pretty much every printer manufacturer would stop selling to California consumers, and the ones that do sell to businesses and consumers will jack up their prices to cover the cost of legal liability insurance for doing business in the state.

It will be like when California banned "assault weapons". Existing owners were grandfathered in, but could not sell their property to other users in state. If you own a Bambu printer, you may find yourself locked out of using your own hardware with your next software update, thanks to this proposed law...

Welcome to California.

We have a full legislature of them that are employed full time making laws just like that.

From September of 2024:

https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcalmatters.org%2Fpolitic...

"Gov. Gavin Newsom cleared his desk today of nearly 1,000 bills â" and he blocked 183 of them.

Thatâ(TM)s a veto rate of about 18% of the bills he acted on after the Legislature adjourned Aug. 31 (and about 16% of all 1,200 bills passed this year). That compares to a 15% veto rate in 2023, when he blocked 156 bills. He had a similar veto percentage in 2022, including some significant bills. In 2021, he vetoed fewer than 8%. "

And those are just the bills that made it to the governor's desk.

From Feb of 2024:

https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.cbsnews.com%2Fsacram...

"SACRAMENTO -- Thousands of bills were introduced by the California Legislature by the deadline last week, but how many will reach Governor Gavin Newsom's desk?

The number: 2,124 bills, is fewer than last year, but still considered "quite a few bills" by McGeorge School of Law Adjunct Professor Chris Micheli.

California, he said, has a high percentage of bills that become law up to 40% on average, out of 2,300 to 2,500 bills introduced every year. In 2023, the number was the highest in over a decade at 2,600 bills introduced.

"On average, actually about 40% of all the bills that get introduced every year in the California Legislature make it to the governor's desk," said Micheli.

A figure on how much it costs, from introduction to passage, in 2024 was not available from the Legislative Analyst's Office, but CalMatters did the math to determine what it may cost, on average, to introduce bills in 2024.

Accounting for inflation, as the last available cost of a California bill was two decades ago, it could cost upwards of $30,000 for a single bill from start to finish. However, Micheli said a specific figure on what it costs may not be accurate as bills vary in length and the number of amendments, as in, no two bills are the same. "

In the cited CalMatters article:

https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcalmatters.org%2Fpolitic...

"The lawmaking process is also not free: Although there are fixed costs, in 2002 the Legislative Analystâ(TM)s Office estimated that each bill cost at least $18,000 to go from introduction to passage: Each bill is given a title and number, goes through analysis by committee staff and is printed out.

An updated dollar figure from the legislative analyst was not available, but adjusting for inflation, each bill today costs in the neighborhood of $30,000. That means the cost of the 1,046 bills sent to Gov. Gavin Newsom last year would total about $31 million."

I mean... you could also try modernizing the environment.

The system as it currently exists is incredibly archaic. Even the stuff that works is aging out.

https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.aviationtoday.com%2F...

"...The FAA has been forced to spend the majority of its roughly $3 billion annual equipment budget simply keeping obsolete systems alive. In some facilities, controllers still rely on technology that uses floppy disks. (Yes, you read that right â" floppy disks.)

Replacement parts for certain components are no longer manufactured, pushing the agency into the surreal position of hunting for spares on secondary markets like eBay. This is not a charming anecdote about bureaucratic inertia. It is a structural failure with cascading consequences for airlines, lessors, manufacturers, and avionics suppliers.

The fragility of the system became impossible to ignore last spring, when technical failures twice knocked out radar serving the airspace around Newark Liberty International Airport.

The outages triggered thousands of delays and cancellations at one of the countryâ(TM)s most critical hubs. While redundancy is built into ATC architecture, there have been repeated incidents where both primary and backup systems failed simultaneously, including at the Philadelphia facility that manages traffic into and out of Newark. Safety was preserved, but operational confidence took another hit."

https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Ffortune.com%2F2025%2F02%2F01...

"Some FAA systems are a half-century old, as aging tech suffers from lack of replacement parts and support service... ...The report from the Government Accountability Office found that the FAA has trouble with upkeep on its equipment, which needs modernization, while airspace demand has seen dramatic growth since the introduction of those systems.

Specifically, according to the FAA officials, aging systems have been difficult to maintain due to the unavailability of parts and retirement of technicians with expertise in maintaining the aging systems,â the report said.

It found that 37% of the FAAâ(TM)s 138 air traffic control systems were deemed unsustainable, meaning replacements come sparingly and there is a significant lack of funding available to modernize the technology.

For example, the Airport Surface Detection Equipment Model-X, which debuted in the early 2000s, tracks movement on the runway. But spare parts for this device are âoeextremely limited and may require expensive special engineering.â

Additionally, beacon replacement antennas are no longer available as they are on average two decades old. And 25-year-old landing systems used to help aircraft on its final approach now lack manufacturing support."

https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.gao.gov%2Fproducts%2Fg...

"The Federal Aviation Administration relies on information systems to help air traffic controllers keep the airspace safe and efficient. Last year, FAA determined that 51 of its 138 systems are unsustainable, citing outdated functionality, a lack of spare parts, and more.

Over half of these unsustainable systems are especially concerning, but FAA has been slow to modernize. Some system modernization projects won't be complete for another 10-13 years. FAA also doesn't have plans to modernize other systems in needâ"3 of which are at least 30 years old."

Doing ATC at a major commercial airport stressful... now throw in the random possiblity of an ATC zero (https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fifr-magazine.com%2Fsystem%2Fatc-zero%2F) due to a critical subsystem failure. This doesn't even take into account hostile actors or nation-states deliberatly attacking infrastructure or messing with local airspace.

It doesn't help that age limits on recruitment dramatically narrows the pool of eligible applicants:

https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.local3news.com%2Freg...

"In the US, air traffic controllers are required to retire at the age of 56, and the FAA wonâ(TM)t hire anyone older than age 31, because they want candidates to have at least a 25-year career path."

Leaving aside possible reasons for a declining birthrate (increased cost, greater opportunity cost, social trends, decreased community availabilty for things like child care, mismatch in education between partners, student debt), let's ask a different question:

Is the decrease in fertility actually a permanent reduction in births on average for women in the United States, or are we seeing a temporary statistical impact due to shifting of when women are having children?

From the article:

"One possibility, according to economist Martha Bailey, head of the California Center for Population Research at the University of California, Los Angeles, is that U.S. women are delaying motherhood and will have more children later in life.

"We're seeing big drops in fertility rates for young women, teenagers and women in their 20s," Bailey said. "What's not yet clear is whether or not those same women will go on to have children later on."

A CDC study published in March of last year found fertility rates rising among women in their 30s and 40s, though not fast enough to offset drops among younger women."

I find it also interesting (but also noting that correlation is not causation) that the peak in births also coincided with the beginning of the great recession: https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2F...

A different article (from the govfacts.org site, which is not associated with the government - do your own research on whether they are an objective source: https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fmediabiasfactcheck.com...) dives a bit deeper, and interestingly shows that birthrates have fallen below replacement rates before:

https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fgovfacts.org%2Flong-term...

"After World War II, America experienced a baby boom that peaked around 3.5 children per woman in the early 1960s. This explosion of births reflected returning servicemen starting families, pent-up demand from Depression and wartime delays, economic prosperity, and cultural expectations that strongly favored large families.

The boom was followed by a sharp âoebaby bustâ that brought the rate to 1.7 by 1976, according to CBS reporting on historical trends. This decline coincided with the introduction of the birth control pill, changing womenâ(TM)s roles, and evolving cultural attitudes toward family size.

For three decades from 1980 to 2007, birth rates remained remarkably stable, fluctuating with economic cycles but staying near replacement level. During recessions, couples would delay childbearing; during expansions, they would catch up. This predictable pattern gave policymakers and economists confidence they understood fertility dynamics."

I did pull up the CDC historical data (unfortunately orphaned and no longer being updated) on US births for comparison:

https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.cdc.gov%2Fnchs%2Fdata-...

And indeed there are peaks in births in 1957 and 1961, and troughs from 1973-1975. What is interesting is in terms of peak fertility per woman was in 1957 at a rate of 122 births per 1000 women between the ages of 15 and 44. This fell to 65 births per 1000 women in 1976, rose to 68.4 by 1980, fell again to 65.4 by 1986, etc. In 1990 it peaked at 70.90, and in 2007 it peaked again at 69.30.

I have no idea how to translate these numbers to replacement figures, but assuming that the general trends are comparable, it seems like birthrates have actually been on a decline since 1957, by CDC measures. While 2007 may look like it was a peak, that's only a local maxima.

Lastly, we might want to factor in the fact that US population grew significantly in the last 60+ years. Taking a different look at the problem from perspective of the US Census:

https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.census.gov%2Flibrary...

This article trumps the highest population growth in the US in decades:

https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.census.gov%2Fnewsroo...

"For Immediate Release: Thursday, December 19, 2024
Net International Migration Drives Highest U.S. Population Growth in Decades"

"...DEC. 19, 2024 â" The U.S. population grew by nearly 1.0% between 2023 and 2024, according to the new Vintage 2024 population estimates released today by the U.S. Census Bureau.

As the nationâ(TM)s population surpasses 340 million, this is the fastest annual population growth the nation has seen since 2001 â" a notable increase from the record low growth rate of 0.2% in 2021. The growth was primarily driven by rising net international migration...."

Could it be that we're seeing fewer births simply because we're approaching or have already hit a maximum point in the population we're able to support in the US?

Yeah, I read through those... and found that while it described a vulnerability, it was still light on actual exploit details.

Did they compromise the inward facing web interface, or an outward web interface? Did they do it through social engineering, or through malware running on devices on the internal network? Was the malware persistent or was it a drive-by instance running a portscanner in a browser instance?

Basically, the question I have is - would flashing say, openWRT on these devices been enough to prevent network intrusion, or were they already inside the gates to begin with?

The linked articles are remarkably light on details of how the routers were compromised. Were they breached from the internet side due to backdoors or poorly implemented services? Was it some sort of configuration default for remote administration that was just bulk abused? Or were the routers compromised from inside the network by malware running locally on machines, or on malware compromised pages? Was it due to remote code execution or was it due to default admin credentials or easily guessable passwords?

Kind of hard to defend against a threat if they won't tell you how the deed was done.

Can it clone proprietary software and turn it into an open source project?

If so, then I think the tradeoff is fair.

Tesla FSD car + Optimus robot actually sounds like the setup to an odd couple movie script...

That or a robotic vision quest buddy film.

The funny thing is, if Bezos really did put 100% of the money in himself, people would accuse him of trying to hog all the benefits of manufacturing automation, and shutting out investment by other parties.

I'm waiting for Larry Ellison to do just that, but with a fuckton of borrowed money, because... well, Larry Ellison.

https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.wired.com%2Fstory%2Fla...
https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.thomasnet.com%2Finsi...
https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fslate.com%2Ftechnology%2F2...

Part of the game is taking assets people think is worth money, and converting it into assets that are actually worth money...

https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.forbes.com%2Fprofile...

J.B. Pritzker
$3.9B
Real Time Net Worth

        Jay Robert "J.B." Pritzker is the governor of Illinois; he unseated Republican incumbent Bruce Rauner as a Democratic candidate in 2018.
        An heir to the Hyatt Hotel fortune, Pritzker ran private equity firm Pritzker Group with his brother Anthony until March 2017.
        His charitable foundation supports nonprofits primarily in Chicago, including the Ounce of Prevention Fund, which provides early-childhood education.
        His uncle Jay Pritzker (d. 1999) founded Hyatt Hotels and his father Donald (d. 1972) managed and developed the chain.
        His sister Penny Pritzker, also a billionaire, served as U.S. commerce secretary under Barack Obama from 2013 to early 2017.

Niantic started life as an internal team at Google working on monetising location data. Being a revenue centre was the whole point from day one.

Only the "delivery robots" bit of this is actually news. Niantic being a datamining operation that tricked its users into scanning the real world for it is not. Hell Zuboff devoted a chunk of "The Age of Surveillance Capitalism" to it and that book came out in 2019.

Thanks for your questions, Freenet caches data but it isn’t meant to be a long-term storage network. It’s better to think of it as a communication system. Data persists as long as at least one node remains subscribed to it. If nobody subscribes (including the author), it will eventually disappear from the network. So yes, if only your node subscribes then the data will only exist there and won’t be available when your machine is offline. But if other nodes subscribe it will be replicated automatically and remain available even if your node goes offline.

Not from 2023, the linked video is from last month. https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3F...