When the Clinton administration moved to limit the proliferation of encryption technologies with recourse to International Traffic in Arms Regulation, it didn't work too well. There was almost a Streisand Effect -- outside of government-approved channels, strong cryptography spread unabated until in 1997 ITAR lowered the classification of such software; there was no stopping the proliferation.

There's a lesson here for the State Department, which this week ordered that Defense Distributed founder Cody Wilson take offline his design for the the 3-D-printable “Liberator” handgun to review the files for compliance with ITAR. It's a lesson libertarian Wilson seems to already know. Referring to the letter he received from the government ordering that his files be taken down, he told Forbes, "All such data should be removed from public access, the letter says. That might be an impossible standard."

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And indeed, TorrentFreak reports Friday that, while Wilson has complied with the government, "the blueprints, however, are still available on The Pirate Bay and many other file-sharing sites, which adds a 3D chapter to the IP enforcement debate.The Pirate Bay says it welcomes the blueprints and has no intention of taking the files down." Before Defense Distributed was asked to remove its files, the gun design was downloaded 100,000 times since its release Monday -- that's plenty of fodder for file sharing. Government intervention might yet prompt a Streisand Effect now that groups with little stake in 3-D gun prints, but strong feelings about censorship and data sharing (such as the Pirate Bay), throw their hats into the game.

Via TorrentFreak: