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.

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.

It would be nice if you could post something where we can examine the source. (EDIT: the link has been changed since I wrote this)

I found this article: https://www.techspot.com/news/108720-hidden-fingerprints-inside-3d-printed-ghost-guns.html

There they say that it's not yet ready to be used in evidence, but the problem with that is that most forensic "science" is generally misapplied and nowhere near as conclusive as the police want us to think. They can usually massage the results to tell a jury what they want to be true. That would be my concern with this kind of technique.

Also, if you're going to the trouble of making a 3d printed ghost gun that will be used in a crime, you could always hide the toolmarks with a sander. You could also treat the surface with resin which would make the markings practically unrecoverable. I've started doing both of these for my prints and I love the results just for the aesthetics, so it's not such a stretch to imagine a gunsmith doing the same.

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.

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.