With the digital files that replicate gun parts already widely distributed through outlets like The Pirate Bay and his own site, DefCAD, Cody Wilson sees efforts to limit the capacity of gun magazines as equally misguided and quixotic. Shortly after talk of banning high-capacity mags began in the wake of the Sandy Hook massacre, Wilson 3D-printed one of his own and uploaded the design, mocking legislators in a YouTube video. Later, Defense Distributed improved the design of its 3D-printed AR-15 lower receiver (the trigger mechanism that the ATF regulates) to fire off over 600 rounds without breaking or jamming.

Further comparison between cryptography and firearms is a hard sell (both hold the potential for wrongdoing; only one can actually kill). But the guns themselves are almost beside the point. To Wilson and others, they're simply information trying to be free, another genie that can never be put back in its bottle.

"I just don't see how you can stop it effectively," he said to the audience after a screening of Motherboard's documentary. "The bits will flow."

You can have my encryption keys when you pry them from my cold, dead hard drive

I remember being briefly surprised the first time I went to Def Con, the world's largest hacker conference, after noticing a large number of attendees sporting pro-gun regalia on their backpacks, cars, and clothing. But in retrospect, the political common ground sometimes shared by hackers and Second Amendment enthusiasts seems like it should be obvious. The event has hosted (both officially and unofficially) a small "Def Con Shoot" gathering just outside of Las Vegas prior to each year's festivities. And the Electronic Frontier Foundation, an advocacy group with a strong presence at Def Con promotes a similar "Don’t Tread On Me" message with regard to digital rights and privacy.

You can have my encryption keys when you pry them from my cold, dead hard drive.

It’s not a stretch to view Wilson's scheme as a kind of holy grail for a certain strain of technological determinists — those who believe technological progress should shape society’s values, not the other way around. During the recent Q&A, an audience member described the Wiki Weapon project as an executable version of "The Anarchist’s Cookbook" where you simply get the molotov cocktail instead of reading about how to make one — the raw, physical expression of once-intangible data sets.

Wilson seemed to agree. "I don't know where that puts it on a moral spectrum," he says. It’s clearly not a conundrum he seems particularly interested in exploring.