Additive Manufacturing
Dr. Regan Damron
USEUCOM, J2 Strategy Division – Deep Futures
This paper analyzes the contemporary tactics, techniques, and procedures (TT&Ps) associated with the manufacture and illicit distribution of SALW and how technological trends are likely to converge to augment and/or alter those practices.40
SALW are particularly nefarious in their potential to ignite, worsen, and prolong conflicts (SEESAC 2010, pp. 7-8). Additionally, SALW proliferate more easily and more often than larger, more complex conventional weapons systems because:
o Access to SALW is less strictly controlled;
o They are physically smaller and thus easier to transport/smuggle;
o Ammunition/ordnance for SALW is easier to come by; and
o They are within reach of many more end users because far fewer resources are required for their purchase, maintenance, and use (particularly if small quantities are desired).
Currently, relatively few, large-scale traffickers dominate the illicit distribution of SALW (Interview Damron and Henke, 2012). This is unlikely to change immediately, but two things may happen as existing trafficking networks are confronted with developments in anonymizing technologies. First, existing large-scale traffickers may capitalize on these technologies to minimize their risk by neutralizing existing vulnerabilities. They will use online anonymity in combination with anonymizable currencies to make it much more difficult for law enforcement to monitor and/or trace their communications and financial flows. Second, a “deep web” trafficking model may develop in parallel with this one as a result of these new anonymizing technologies (Wright, 2009).41 This model capitalizes on the anonymized
“deep web” environment to obfuscate arms sales and focuses on expanding the availability of SALW to individuals who may not have had the resources or the connections to procure such weapons before.
These new consumers demand smaller quantities of arms that are typically delivered by shipping component parts separately to a variety of physical addresses, to be assembled by the end user(s).
40 Herein I use the terms “illicit distribution” and “trafficking” interchangeably to refer inclusively to all processes associated with the proliferation of SALW once they are manufactured (e.g., brokering, diverting, smuggling, the forging of documents, etc.). The terms thus include both “gray market” (possibly legal, but either secret or unauthorized) and “black market” (wholly illicit) proliferation. For more information, see Krause, Keith. “Small Arms and Light Weapons: Proliferation Processes and Policy Options.” Canada Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, 2000.
41 In fact, this has already occurred at an underground website called the Armory. The term “deep web” refers to World Wide Web content that is not indexed by standard search engines.
Small Arms and Light Weapons (SALW) refers to weapons and ammunition of 100mm caliber and below. It thus includes such items as pistols, assault rifles, machine guns, mortars, man-portable surface-to-air missiles (MANPADS), shoulder-launched anti-tank rockets, conventional explosives, and detonators (SEESAC 2010, p. 7). Hereafter, the term
“arms” refers to SALW.
Looking deeper into the horizon, the maturation of desktop 3D printing (or “additive manufacturing”) technology is likely to completely revolutionize both the manufacture and the trafficking of SALW by eroding the economic foundations on which the business model of arms trafficking is currently built.
In order to examine these phenomena, this paper first examines mature anonymizing technologies (online anonymity and anonymizable currencies). The implications of these for SALW trafficking are discussed and recent developments in each are recounted. The paper then examines additive manufacturing (or “3D printing”) as a nascent technology that has the potential to change the contours of the landscape entirely. Potential signposts for which to watch as developments continue to unfold are then enumerated, and the paper concludes with a discussion of risks and opportunities from a U.S. DOD perspective.
Online Anonymity: The Black Leather Gloves of the Internet Age
Online anonymity is the state of being untraceable in one’s online activities (Henke and Damron, 2012).42 While there are several technologies that may be used in different combinations to achieve various levels of anonymity, this discussion focuses on a single, broadly available one in order to illustrate the concept: The Tor Project.43
Tor is a software implementation of “onion routing,” a technology that obscures the connection between the originating IP address (e.g., a user’s computer) and the destination of the network traffic (e.g., a website). Combined with widely available end-to-end network communications encryption,44 Tor effectively allows a user to browse the Web without others being able to divine their identity (Syverson, 2013).45
Equally relevant, however, is the ability for websites to reside within the Tor network. Sites can have a
“.onion” address that anonymizes the location (both virtual and physical) of the site itself. Such sites are viewable only from within a Tor-enabled browser (see Figure 15), which provides an additional layer of security.46 These .onion sites constitute a very deep part of the so-called “deep web.” Interestingly, the
“Use a New Identity” button changes one’s virtual IP address by changing proxies.
42 This is the definition used in previous Deep Futures work; it is goal-oriented and thus includes technologies that function passively by creating a system with generic attributes as well as those that actively mask IP addresses, encrypt e-mail communications, and the like.
43 This is an important point that should not escape the reader’s notice. No single technology is unassailable. What is most disturbing about Tor is its accessibility and its ability to be used in conjunction with other technologies to achieve higher levels of anonymity. TT&Ps exist for this sort of integration and are promulgated online. For these reasons, Tor has been chosen to serve as the archetype of an anonymizing technology in this study.
44 The encryption protocols currently most commonly used for this are Transport Layer Security (TSL) or Secure Sockets Layer (SSL).
45 As with anonymizable currencies (discussed below), the anonymity for any single user increases as the number of users expands. Tor does indeed have various vulnerabilities, but they generally require a suspect to be targeted for analysis in advance and thus cannot be used to aid in the initial identification of target sets. The most practical approaches to exploit these vulnerabilities are “end-to-end correlation analysis” and “website fingerprinting.”
46 These site addresses can also be changed by the owner at will. Because of this, the site operator can control access to the site by offering the address only to those who have certain characteristics (e.g., those who have exchanged Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) encryption certificates of a certain security level with the site operator—a
Approved for Public Release 162 Figure 15: Tor Initial Configuration Screen, Control Panels, and Network Status Monitor47
The ability for websites to “live in” Tor is what makes the technology so game-changing with regard to SALW proliferation. This means not only that end-user solicitations for weapons (or drugs, hacking services, etc.) can be completely anonymous, but that the suppliers can be anonymous as well (and furthermore, each is anonymous with respect to—and thus protected from—the other). Add anonymizable currencies, discussed below, and even financial transactions between the two can be protected.
Anonymizable Currencies: Out of Sight, Out of Mind
Anonymizable currencies are media of exchange that require no personal identification for use and whose networks can operate in near-complete isolation from the mainstream financial system.48 They are “anonymizable” rather than “anonymous” because although their use alone does not guarantee anonymity, they are amenable to full anonymization if certain procedures are followed.49 Bitcoin is a prominent example of such a currency and eCache is a lesser-known, gold-backed, and Tor-enabled variant (Keiser, 2011).
What makes these currencies disconcerting is the anonymity they afford to their users and they are potentially dangerous due to their broadening availability and acceptance. The larger the pool of users, the more difficult it is to discern illicit from licit transactions and to monitor and/or trace the former.
47 This graphic was generated from a screen capture taken by the author from an Apple MacBook computer.
48 This is the author’s definition. Full network isolation is not possible if one wishes to convert funds to and from a national currency for use; however, such intersections can be minimized. It should also be noted that cash could satisfy the first condition of this definition under certain conditions. It cannot satisfy the second, however, because its use and even its physical movement are regulated by the central authority that issues it (e.g., U.S. Customs and Border Protection reporting requirements governing the transport of cash across the U.S. border).
49 One might expect that the conversion of funds into the currency (“placement,” in threat finance terminology) and the conversion of funds back into a national fiat currency (“extraction”) to be the points of greatest vulnerability, but even these steps can be anonymized. “How-to” tutorials for such procedures may be found on the Web; one need only troll the appropriate discussion threads. See https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=79288.0 for an example.
Figure 16: Black Market Reloaded Advertising Banner from the TorDir (Tor Directory) Homepage. Note the .onion address at the lower left and the Bitcoin logo at right
Implications of Anonymizing Technologies for SALW Trafficking
Currently, the illicit distribution of SALW is dominated by relatively few, large-scale traffickers. This is unlikely to change in the near term (Interview by Damron and Henke, 2012). However, traffickers of SALW can benefit from online anonymity and anonymizable currencies by using them to reduce their vulnerability. Anonymity in the digital realm exerts its influence by effectively isolating the digital world from the physical one (or perhaps more precisely, one’s digital identity(ies) from one’s physical self).
The greatest points of vulnerability in any such system are the points at which the digital world intersects with the physical one because it is there that anonymity is jeopardized. In arms trafficking terms, these would be the points at which a person’s physical presence is required (where physical currency is exchanged for physical goods, for example) or where non-encrypted and/or traceable communications occur.50 In threat finance terms, these would be the points at which the money is placed into or extracted from a laundering system (in this case, an anonymizable currency).
To the extent that communications, transactions, and delivery of goods and/or services can be fully executed within an anonymized system, then, vulnerabilities are limited. Using these technologies, only the delivery of physical goods (e.g., weapons) must be done outside the anonymized system. The current strategy employed by .onion sites like the Armory and Black Market Reloaded (see Figure 16) for minimizing the risks inherent in delivery is to ship the weapons’ component parts separately to a variety of physical addresses (P.O. boxes, generally) and have the end user(s) assemble the final product.51 Table 5: Effects of Anonymizing Technologies on SALW Trafficking
What Anonymizing
50 Additional points of intersection (and thus vulnerability) exist as well (e.g., a record of passwords to anonymous accounts may link a person’s physical identity with their anonymized online one, thus compromising anonymity), but these are beyond scope for present purposes.
51 “…buyers get each gun component shipped in shielded packages—disguised to look like other products—that then require self-assembly. You get your gun, the dealer gets his money, The Armory retains its secrecy, and the
Approved for Public Release 164 As illustrated in Table 5, there are two higher-order effects of these anonymizing technologies. First, as a second order effect, they make weapons more accessible in Web-enabled societies through:
1. Reducing risks of exposure by anonymizing the processes of both acquisition (demand) and sales (supply); and
2. Making it easier for buyers and sellers to find one-another by lowering barriers to entry to the trust networks that regulate access.52 Effectively, these technologies make it both quicker (because less time is required to cultivate contacts) and safer (due to anonymity) to sell and/or purchase weapons.
The third-order effect follows from the second, as increased access to weapons enlarges the potential market for them. As risk is reduced and the necessity to make “underworld” connections in the physical world declines, people who might not otherwise dedicate the time and resources to pursue weapons procurement are freed to do so.
This is not to suggest that people will suddenly begin to procure weapons simply because they become available to them; rather, it points out changes in the environment that can be permissive to those who wish to exploit them. This is the demand side of the equation.
Suppliers will see that there are potential revenues to be made in supplementing large-scale transfers by selling smaller quantities of arms. Economies of scale have historically been a key to profitability for traffickers due to the high risks involved in their work, and this fact drives them to deal in larger quantities. Dealing in smaller quantities becomes more viable as risk is reduced and the market expands.
It costs very little for traffickers to create and maintain an anonymous online presence (one’s own .onion site, listings on .onion sites such as the Armory or Black Market Reloaded, PGP-encrypted anonymous e-mail through Tormail, etc.), and this is all that is needed to make their wares available to those who would seek them out in that forum. Suppliers will recognize this fact and will appreciate the potential to reach new markets with very little additional cost or risk to themselves.
Tradeoffs
The use of anonymizing technologies is not purely beneficial for traffickers. Online anonymity can make it more difficult to discern genuine traffickers (or buyers) from impostors even as it reduces the risk of engaging in illicit activities. Anonymizable currencies present similar verification hurdles to making transactions, since the money must change hands before the arms are shipped (or vice-versa). That is, it is difficult for the buyer to verify the quality of the arms and whether or not they have shipped prior to payment being made if anonymizable currencies are used, since payment is generally processed online at this time.53 Finally, the values of anonymizable currencies can be unstable.
52 While the first point about reduced risk is fairly intuitive, the second about trust networks may be less so. A high degree of person-to-person trust has historically been required to gain access to illicit networks, and this trust takes time to accrue. This is due mainly to the high risk of exposure that goes along with participation in illicit activity (even just knowing enough to buy from an illicit network (contact information, TT&Ps used to execute exchanges, etc.) means that the buyer has the potential to compromise at least part of that network). Any additions to the network thus have to be vetted. Anonymity affords protection to both parties of an illicit exchange while still allowing the exchange to take place because individuals can be uniquely identified in the virtual world while nothing of substance is known about their identities in the physical world. This reduction in risk means that a user can be “vetted” simply by demonstrating his/her use and knowledge of anonymizing technology. That is, the mere fact of being anonymized is enough to allow one to access a .onion site and participate in an economic exchange; to gain knowledge of a sort that could compromise either party, further trust would have to be developed. This likely affects law enforcement TT&Ps; exactly how it does so is an area for further research.
53 See also Mack, Eric. “Are physical Bitcoins legal?” http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-20125470-1/are-physical-bitcoins-legal/; and Caldwell, Mike. “Physical Bitcoins by Casascius https://www.casascius.com/.
Strategies do exist to mitigate these concerns, however, and the marketplace continues to evolve. The infamous .onion drug trafficking site, Silk Road, and its sister arms trafficking site, the Armory, have dealt with these problems by allowing buyers and sellers to rate one-another to promote accountability through reputation, a strategy co-opted from such sites as Ebay.com and Amazon.com (Biddle, 2012).
And those who deal in anonymizable currencies can minimize their exposure to value volatility by converting their capital into and out of the currency quickly (BitInstant, 2013).
Recent Signposts for Anonymizing Technologies: Tor and Bitcoin
The anonymization space continues to evolve rapidly; the following are some significant developments that have occurred recently, including the following (Henke and Damron, 2012).
• Tor usage continues to grow (see Figure 17), and it has been ported to popular operating systems, including smartphones (The Tor Project, 2013).54
• “How-to” articles showing how to properly configure and use Tor in conjunction with other tools to achieve fuller online anonymity continue to proliferate on the Web (sudo-su, 2012).
• An analysis of Silk Road, a Tor-enabled anonymous marketplace specializing in the sale of controlled substances and narcotics, found that the site generated 1.9 million dollars per month in essentially untraceable revenue (Christian, 2012). A sister site for the trafficking of arms, the Armory, also existed at one time and may still (Koebler, 2012). Multi-purpose marketplaces such as Black Market Reloaded exist, as well, and deal in all manner of contraband.
Figure 17: Estimated Tor Average Daily Users Worldwide (The Tor Project, Metrics Portal, 2013) Implications from anonymizable currencies, as represented by Bitcoin are listed below.
• The European Central Bank published a report examining the possible threats posed by digital currencies; roughly a quarter of the 55-page report is dedicated to Bitcoin (European Central Bank, 2012).
• Individual Iranians have discovered Bitcoin as a method for skirting sanctions; TT&Ps include using Bitcoin to purchase foreign currencies (e.g., U.S. dollar) for holding/investing outside the Iranian banking system (Raskin, 2012).
• A Bitcoin exchange has been allowed to operate legally within the European regulatory framework (Bitcoin-Central.Net, 2012).
54 See also “Stronger Anonymity Comes to iPhone With Tor-Enabled App.”
http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2011/11/18/stronger-anonymity-comes-to-the-iphone-with-tor-Approved for Public Release 166
• Bitcoin market capitalization (the number of Bitcoins in circulation multiplied by their exchange rate—against the U.S. dollar, in this case) has risen continuously over the past year (see Figure 18), reaching nearly $180 million in circulation as of this writing.55
Figure 18: Bitcoin Market Capitalization: 50-day Moving Average (Blockchain.info, 2013)
Anonymizing technologies provide a cloak under which to engage in illicit activities by isolating the physical from the digital. As explained earlier, the physical movement of trafficked goods is the only link in the trafficking chain that must currently be executed outside of the anonymized system. As additive manufacturing technology matures, the distribution of physical goods is pulled into the digital realm, minimizing (if not eliminating) the vulnerabilities associated with the delivery of illicit goods.
Additive Manufacturing: The Game-changer on the Horizon
Additive manufacturing, or “3D printing,” is a process by which a physical object is generated from a three-dimensional computer model (Oxford, 2012). Typically, the object is constructed by laying down many successive thin layers of material. Depending on the equipment used, materials can range from flexible plastic to high-tensile-strength metals such as titanium (Material, 2013).
This technology is still nascent, but it is rapidly developing and will have broad impacts as it matures and spreads.56 Most significantly, it has the potential to not only supplement, but actually replace arms trafficking networks as a distribution system.
Currently, the weapons manufacturing potential of 3D printing is limited by the fact that desktop printers are unable to produce parts with sufficiently small manufacturing tolerances, high tensile strengths, and high ductility (low brittleness) to produce reliable firearms.57 That said, it is important to
Currently, the weapons manufacturing potential of 3D printing is limited by the fact that desktop printers are unable to produce parts with sufficiently small manufacturing tolerances, high tensile strengths, and high ductility (low brittleness) to produce reliable firearms.57 That said, it is important to