IV. NAVIGATING THE COMPLEX CULTURE DRIVING RADICAL LEVELING TECHNOLOGIES In the life sciences, researchers and security officials hadn't much history of working together. After 9/11, tensions threatened to grow between them. Neither group understood how the other operated and each thought the other was basically clueless. Gerald Epstein, Director AAAS Center for Science, Technology and Security Policy In 2012, a company called Defense Distributed became the first producer of a 3D- printed firearm, called the Liberator. Intended by the group to be a political statement concerning the protection of constitutional freedoms online and to send a message to global governments about the regulation of digital technologies, the project was quickly misinterpreted as a significant threat to security. The State Department officially requested that Defense Distributed remove the designs from their website, indicating that the files may be subject to the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR), a policy responsible for regulating weapons and certain kinds of technical data. The group complied, but not before over a hundred thousand downloads of the design had been recorded.94 Today, it is easy to find and download the original files from numerous online locations. A second statement by the State Department issued in June 2015 took a stronger stance on the issue of 3D gun design, declaring the intent to restrict specific types of designs and to require developers to obtain approval before "online publication of any technical data that . . . would allow for the creation of weapons . . ."95 This is one example of many in which a cultural misunderstanding complicated a situation that could have been resolved in a much simpler fashion. Understanding that Defense Distributed is an outgrowth of an online cultural group known as the cypherpunks, who are dedicated to the protection of individual user rights online, especially freedom of speech and expression, may have influenced the State Department to take a different approach. The case studies in this chapter will underscore three primary themes of attempts to utilize traditional methods of regulation against this problem set: 1) a lack of understanding of cultural norms and moral issues will negate applied legal measures, 2) a failure to understand and incorporate the cultures of the regulatees will lead to failed policy, and 3) the negative effects of applying quick policy fixes to RLT and online OSCs can cause nations to be less secure and grant a foothold for rogue actors. While the State Department's intentions were to enhance public safety, the effect achieved was the opposite. Within days of the June announcement, online groups that had been openly discussing 3D printing firearms suddenly instituted private chat rooms, deleted comments on how to meet existing gun laws or ways to circumvent the law, and began looking to encryption programs or Dark Web servers sponsored by foreign entities to escape US jurisdiction. Any visibility that open-source analysts had on this particular technological evolution, how quickly the technology was diffusing, and which groups might be willing to collaborate with the government to conduct self-policing or threat warning disappeared overnight. This phenomenon is not new, yet it continues to pose a stumbling block to regulators. As in the battle by MGM to stop illegal music sharing, the danger of making a moral issue into a market issue means that legal measures, especially measures that are likely to have little to no impact, generally result in anonymizing behaviors, high rates of diffusion via digital means, and isolation of user groups, restricting participation in constructive, collaborative solution forums. The technology evolves in exactly the manner the regulator had hoped to avoid.96 One reporter did a good job of summing up the ill-conceived regulation strategy: Even those who do not feel that everyone should have the ability to print their own guns have to see the lopsided logic at blocking access to the 3D printable gun instructions when directions on how to craft fertilizer bombs and make poisons [are] still readily available.97 Technological change can be daunting. But it is important to recognize when that change is occurring and then take the time to formulate an appropriate response. Failure to do so can make a simple political statement into a much bigger problem.98 The Liberator demonstrates the impact the lack of understanding of the "foreign" culture of OSCs and the influence (or lack thereof) that cookie-cutter policies and outdated regulations can have. While cultural training is stressed for military and diplomats operating in foreign nations, it is seldom discussed in terms of cyber and technology policy. This shortsightedness has a cost: alienated and radicalized OSCs, an online community that fails to report apparent threats to national security or public safety, stifled innovation that damages the US economy and military, and the creation of dangerous blind spots that can function as cyber safe havens for nefarious actors. The most important factor in the development of policy is understanding the culture and environment in which that policy needs to operate. This chapter will be devoted to identifying successful and failed attempts to engage with OSCs, to provide an understanding of some of the critical nuances explicit to policy and regulation in the digital dimension. Without this grounding, RLT policy development will at best have limited success or at worst be a total failure that results in enhanced operational security for threat actors.99 This chapter will provide an introduction to the online open-source culture. While groups may have their own unique personalities, all online groups embrace a shared cyber culture and (with the exception of a radical minority) obey its mandates. The case- study segment will follow, with five examples of negative interactions between government or corporate actors and OSCs (to include individual actors), highlighting what went wrong, why, and the end results (costs) of the interaction. A look at existing policy and identified shortfalls using 3D printing as an example will be included. Then, five positive case-study interactions will be examined with a focus on why these interactions were successful and what government and corporate entities did differently to make them a success. Finally, the chapter will conclude with a discussion of elements that can help to craft smart policy for the digital environment while avoiding known pitfalls that can lead to the "compliance without effect" problem experienced by policymakers grappling with RLT today.100