Future Melbourne: Criminals could use 3D printers to create bombs, guns

CRIMINALS could use advanced 3D printers to produce the ingredients to make deadly bombs over the coming decades.

CRIMINALS could use advanced 3D printers to produce the ingredients to make deadly bombs over the coming decades.

Police fear that criminal syndicates will be able to use advanced 3D manufacturing to make uranium centrifuges, drugs and biological weapons.

Criminals will also be able to manipulate physical objects and edit DNA.

They are already starting to experiment with making guns from 3D printers since instructions on how to do so were first published online in May 2013.

“3D Printing can be used to produce anything from handbags and shoes to drugs, and uranium centrifuges,” Australian Federal Police Deputy Commissioner Ramzi Jabbour told the Herald Sun.

“Criminals will be able to manipulate physical objects and potentially edit DNA.

“The ability to use future technologies to copy fingerprints and edit DNA will present challenges to existing forensic capabilities and require police to develop new forensic evidence techniques.”

A report issued by the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission last month stated while the current threat of Australian criminals using 3D printers to make guns is low, it is expected to increase as 3D printing technology improves.

Experts in the US issued a warning earlier this year about the risk of new technology being used to create even deadlier weapons.

Countries which are seeking to develop nuclear weapons could use the new technology to evade international safeguards.

Traditional nuclear weapon control measures include authorities keeping an eye on international markets for the sale of the components needed for making a nuclear device.

Other safeguards are in place to stop certain types of technology and equipment being exported by countries with nuclear capabilities.

New technology could allow countries to manufacture the equipment they need to make a deadly weapon themselves.

Scholar Grant Christopher has recommended governments introduce export restrictions on certain types of 3D printers to counter this threat.

Nuclear policy experts Matthew Kroenig and Tristan Volpe have also advocated for other measures to limit the dangers of 3D printers to nuclear security.

Sources also told the Herald Sun that because new technology will allow physical objects to be manipulated and molecular structures to be changed, the future of forensic evidence at crime scenes could be challenged.

“What police collect at a crime scene is going to become increasingly insecure,” the source said.

Experts have warned that finger biometrics are increasingly insecure.

In 2014 a computer hacker claimed to have cloned a thumbprint of a German politician by using commercial software and images taken at a news conference.

Jan Krissler said he replicated the fingerprint of defence minister Ursula von der Leyen using pictures taken with a “standard photo camera”.

He said he obtained a close-up of a photo of Ms von der Leyen’s thumb and had also used other pictures taken at different angles during a press conference that the minister had spoken at.

@davidhurleyHS