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Eavesdropping On 3D Printers Allows Reverse Engineering of Designs (gizmag.com)
Zothecula writes: 3D printers have opened up all kinds of possibilities when it comes to turning digital blueprints into real word objects, but might they also enable new ways to pilfer intellectual property? Amid all that mechanical whirring, these machines emit acoustic signals that give away the motion of the nozzle, new research has found. And by discreetly recording these sounds, scientists say it is possible for sneaky characters to deduce design details and reverse engineer printed objects at a later date.
My Yoda coffee cup will fall into the hands of the Russians!
The issue might be real, but the summary is asshandedly disingenious. There is no "Intellectual Property" to be leaked, unless something copyrighted or patented is being printed, with permission.
In many cases, physical objects of no artistic value (such as screws) cannot be copyrighted.
If it's patented, then the leaked info does nothing to bypass the patent liability.
Seems the whole thing is either a paid hit piece attacking 3d printers, or bad sensationalistic journalism trying to drum up a fake controversy.
In either case, to avoid rewarding such misbehavior, DO NOT READ TFA.
Why bother ? If you are close enough to eavesdrop just steall the item!
Plus I bet the resolution they hear is a tad rough ... "They are printing something .... square!!! .... ish ...... "
Back shortly after WWII, we developed the ability to tell what was being typed by the sounds of the typewriter being worked. Today, we can often do the same if we know the typer's 'fist', the patterns they use to type. Beyond that, you have electromagnetic patterns - record the radio signals, process them, and you can get the image on the screen, the characters typed, even for wired instruments.
In short, this is neat, but really no big deal.
I don't read AC A human right
If you have access to the room with the 3d printer, I think you can figure out a much easier way to directly steal the files with the secret design. No need for this Rube Goldberg-esque nonsense.
Why infiltrate the room the 3D printer is in when you can acquire much more detailed and accurate data using a credit card, a hacksaw, and a laser scanner? You buy the product. You scan the outside with the scanner. You saw whatever cross sections are interesting and scan those too, and you're done.
But hey, that chiming sound you hear is another graduate student getting his wings. Nice thesis project.
I dont nead 3B pirnters for my real WORD obtiecjs!
Sent as ripples into the electromagnetic field. No single photon has been harmed in the process.
Not only that, but you could reverse engineer things such as material, speeds and feeds.
Interesting, but doesn't have anything to do with 3d printers other than this is what is was demonstrated with. You could probably do the same thing with a dot matrix printer. Or a line printer.
https://youtu.be/VOnmQ3hTV3I?t=2m20s
I imagine that copying 3D printing files should achieve similar result, admittedly with much less cloak and dagger.
But I guess I'm an old fashioned day dreamer.
I hadn't the slightest objection to his spending his time planning massacres for the bourgeoisie... (P.G. Wodehouse)
Great! Is this a new principle?
Recording the sound of somebody typing on a keyboard might help cracking the password needed to access the blueprints.
Recording the sound of a city bus might help to find out where it stopped. Listening around you might help you figure out what people are doing, etc.
Better yet for all those hypothetical cases;, a video feed!
Everything I write is lies, read between the lines.
while this may have been a fun exercise in hypotheticals, reconstructing an object from the sound a 3d printer makes is the most indirect, difficult and least precise way of getting the information you want. it's fun to think of but it just has no practical application.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
nice
Who the hell cares?
"but might they also enable new ways to pilfer intellectual property?"
No, because there is no such thing.
90% accuracy?! And that is supposed to be useful for something? Seriously, even if someone pilfered the .stl file, the actual 3D model loaded into the 3D printer, all it can tell you is the basic shape. Maybe it can give the an idea of what is being developed.
That being said, there is a "neat factor" in recording the sound & reproducing the object. But as industrial espionage, this is kina weak. Reverse engineering is a pain in the ass (to do it right) & this would not be of any help IMO.
SLOWER TRAFFIC KEEP RIGHT
Sounds so ominous when it's doing a circle. Like from a horror movie.
Open source. Android wouldn't exist without it. Look at LLVM - the App store wouldn't exist without it. It exists and is working its way to being a hundred billion per year in value creation.
The 3d printer isn't just music, images on the screen, etc. Adam Smith would say the 3d printer creates commodities and the iPhone does not. A 1950's fear-monger would say that the printed commodity design must be protected. I think they miss the point.
There is an opportunity for production of commodities to have a revolution as substantial as the iphone and app store, but it can never exist in a climate of fear. It cannot exist without an established and mature open-source design ecosystem.
As with any fabricated commodity, if you don't have established patent and copyright protections, you really aren't in the business of making the commodity for business.
If you've used a 3D printer it's basically a no-brainer to understand that you can retrace the printhead movement from the sounds the printer makes. Some people have even be making music on their printers.
http://3dprint.com/29244/3d-pr...
I hadn't known there were so many idiots in the world until I started using the Internet -Stanislaw Lem
to steal someone's design, that has to be the STUPIDEST way to do it possible.
It's like a Bruce Schneier Movie Plot Security Thread contest. Only stupider.
A thousand pounds of wood moving at 300 feet per minute. Don't get in the way.
Just put on some tunes, LOUD... Or to be extra stealthy record some random printer noise and broadcast while you print your ultra top secret doodad.