Graphics Reference
In-Depth Information
activity is still too modest to have come to the attention of lawmakers, corpo-
rate litigators and criminals.
The downstream impact of emerging, game-changing technologies is dif-
icult to predict. Look at your personal computer, so innocently sitting there
on your desk. In just a decade or so, computing has shaken up our legal system
at its foundations.
Local sales tax or value added tax (VAT), once a simple and straightforward
issue, has become a complicated accounting question for Internet-based com-
mercial transactions. The crime of “stalking” has taken on a whole new meaning
online. Consumer privacy laws are stretched by companies that shamelessly track
their customer's internet searching, browsing, and buying habits. Organized
crime is no longer a centralized, local phenomenon as cybercriminals commit
fraud and conduct espionage from remote and hidden locations.
When computers were a costly industrial tool doing their work in the back-
rooms of data centers, they didn't stir up a whole lot of new legal challenges.
However, when computing power reached a critical mass of the population,
people and businesses quickly discovered that existing laws and regulations
were woefully inadequate. Core legal deinitions of ownership, location and
format had to be redeined.
3D printing, like any industry that experiences rapid technological leaps
forward, will also experience new legal challenges and novel forms of consumer
safety and criminal activity. Law changes slowly. But technology doesn't wait.
Printing weapons, drugs, and shoddy
products
Being a currency counterfeiter used to be a skilled profession. In a recent public
service bulletin, the U.S. Secret Service noted that today's counterfeiters are
a new breed. Modern counterfeiters need only “basic computer training and
skills afforded by trial and error, and public education.”
Before 1995 fewer than one percent of fake bills were made using computers
and laser printers. Just 5 years later, in 2000, just under half of false bills were
designed online and then printed out on a high-end color printer.
1
Computer
design software, color laser printers, and toner technology have democratized
currency counterfeiting. Traditional offset printing, the old method, demanded
a skilled counterfeiter with years of experience.
