Why is this centered on the Vatican? So you can eat Jesus no matter what??

First time I ever heard the speech was on this amazing album: https://theotolith.bandcamp.com/album/folium-limina

This is right, for as long as the fdm printer hobbyists can avoid the lockdown and enshittification that some printer brands are definitely pushing. The value of this paper, for it’s authors, seems more like a proof of concept: fingerprinting is possible. And I think that’s actually it’s same value for hobbyists: the problems with a closed system and proprietary printer firmware are not hypothetical.

The fact that this could only work in 100% locked down ecosystems was my thought too. About cutting the part up, that seems to be what this particular paper is most proud of: they did a bunch of math to make some codes that they could still figure out even when they were cut into pieces and mixed up—like if a person broke their printed part after using it. Sort of like error-correcting codes I guess, but able to be reassembled from fragments.

Here’s the paper where they explain it. Basically, they make subtle fluctuations in layer height, adding or subtracting small amounts that are not visible to the naked eye, to encode 0s and 1s. So, maybe in principle this could run at the firmware level on your printer. Then, someone can use a microscope to read off the code from pieces of the printed part.

I would have some doubts about how reliable this is, given the relatively large tolerances in fdm printing, but they have a section about that in the paper, so I guess they at least have thought about it.

How do I reblog this

None of the sites are completely free from enshittification, but printables seems the least bad. Prusa has a better track record with supporting an open community, at least for now. Bambu+makerworld is an example of a company trying to close as much as possible to lock people in. Now I can’t download without a login? No thanks.