A criminal could buy an Ender3 or other extremely ubiquitous, non-internet-connected printer. Maybe used, in cash, on various marketplaces.
Filament can be bought in cash as well from a bunch of retailers and the leftover stock (evidence) easily disposed by dumping or burning/melting after the “suspect objects” are created.
Furthermore, nozzles are like $1 apiece in some cases. Printbed replacements or sheets of glass (also often used as printbed surfaces) are like $20 and can be changed often and easily. Changing these two components completely invalidates the “match” of the toolmarks.
This type of forensics is only practical if the target suspect is dumb enough to use the same settings for everything, never change a nozzle or bed, keep all his empty filament spools and receipts, pay for everything with credit cards in his name, and have a bunch of cloud-saved bambu-sliced files called “super illegal weaponry.gcode” associated with his printer.
A criminal could buy an Ender3 or other extremely ubiquitous, non-internet-connected printer. Maybe used, in cash, on various marketplaces.
Filament can be bought in cash as well from a bunch of retailers and the leftover stock (evidence) easily disposed by dumping or burning/melting after the “suspect objects” are created.
Furthermore, nozzles are like $1 apiece in some cases. Printbed replacements or sheets of glass (also often used as printbed surfaces) are like $20 and can be changed often and easily. Changing these two components completely invalidates the “match” of the toolmarks.
This type of forensics is only practical if the target suspect is dumb enough to use the same settings for everything, never change a nozzle or bed, keep all his empty filament spools and receipts, pay for everything with credit cards in his name, and have a bunch of cloud-saved bambu-sliced files called “super illegal weaponry.gcode” associated with his printer.