If you’re using a 3D printer to prototype your awesome ideas, you better have the radio blasting nearby before the plastic starts flowing.

According to an article on GCN, an amazing discovery by the University of California showed that a basic smartphone could “record the acoustic signals coming from a 3-D printer’s nozzle and reverse-engineer the object being printed.”

The article says the main problem is that “once the process (or 3D printing) starts, emissions produced by the printer create acoustic signals that contain information that can indicate the location of the nozzle” on the printer.

That’s just nuts. You spend months working on a project designing it to perfect spec and finally get to the production stage, only to get it swiped by someone nearby with a open phone line as it prints!

The researchers say professional 3D printers need to “think about ways to jam the acoustic signals, such as a white-noise device”, but for my money, a big speaker blasting industrial music near the 3D printers should be good enough security.

Who knew Ministry and Nine Inch Nails were good for corporate security?