Kirk Garrison, a forensics expert who works for the San Bernardino Sheriff’s department, told 404 Media he’s had early success matching 3D printed objects to the machines that made them.
This is “bite evidence” all over again, isn’t it? For those not familiar, cops swore in court they could match a perp’s teeth to bite marks on victim’s bodies.
They couldn’t.
There were a lot of tainted court cases because of their junk science. I’m all for murderers going to prison but lets not use bullshit to lock up perhaps the wrong people.
If there is a demand for a forensic capability, there’s someone willing to sell it to a police department (and a jury).
Some good discussion from /c/3dprinting@lemmy.world about how it really isn’t as dependable/tracable as the article says:
https://lemmy.world/post/33199760
TLDR is 3D printing typically uses brass nozzles which wear down over time which will change marks left over time, your bed leveling can change over time, and the “fingerprints” the article talks about can be avoided by just printing in different positions/rotations on the bed.
Show me 20 people with 3D printers and I’ll show you 20 people with a bunch of spare nozzles on hand.
Show me 20 people with 3d printers and I’ll show you 20 other people with 3d printers that match the fingerprints of the first 20.
This isn’t like paper printers where companies were forced by the government to encode the serial numbers of the printer into every piece of paper that comes out. There’s no way you could hide identifying information in molten plastic like that.
I’m sure they’ll have the “science” ready in time for Luigi’s trial
Makes me wonder if there’d be any bits of dust, hair or other substances that could have been embedded in a printed object and might be used as evidence in a case.
Use a different print head, sections of print bed, or just entirely new print beds and you defeat this ‘tracing’
So throw the gun in the river afterwards, just like always?
Or burn it
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Sherlock Homes’ treatise on typewriters, 21st century edition.
Just based on the title, since I haven’t read the article yet, that’s quite unfortunate. I would want all of them to be practically identical, so there’s no way to trace them at all.
Edit: After reading the article, I stand by my above statement. I still want them to be completely identical if at all possible.
From the article:
“Garrison said his comments represent his own views and not those of the San Bernardino Sheriff’s department. He also cautioned that what he’s doing is in its infancy and it might be years before authorities can reliably match a gun to the machine that made it, if they can do it at all.”
At best it’s a lead which a good investigator would use to find other leads. It’s extremely far fetched one but better than nothing. It’s good that he noted this can’t really be used to convict in a criminal trial. At worst, which is my concern, lazy investigators just saying “the computer is right” and getting the wrong person. The lazy investigator scenario happens a lot with shitty technology portrayed as CSI bullshit, especially when these garbage companies tack “AI” on to it.
