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Comment by tracker1 | Hacker News Reader

It's a slide action handgun... hard to imagine any part of the design deserving "military secrets" protections when the devices themselves are the most widely available side arm in the US. Anyone can measure, 3D scan, weigh or otherwise capture the design to thousandths of an inch. For that matter, there are thousands of metal and gun smiths that could re-manufacture the design.

I could see the argument in the early 1900's, but today that's absolutely ridiculous on its face.

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No, you see the novel genius of their slapdash hammer to striker conversion has to remain a secret in case the CIA ever gets a chance to poison an adversary nation's design process with it /s

If there's a known vulnerability (which is the case to the best of my knowledge) that can be exploited by an enemy to bring harm to American forces, that would be the very nature of protected National Security Information.

Yeah, you push someone over, their side arm might fire. Any such weakness on a side arm is not something widely or likely remotely exploitable.

Unless you have an earthquake machine.

I disagree, for the same reasons I support open vulnerability disclosures. Any other military could buy one of these pistols, analyze it, and put the vulnerability on Wikipedia or similar. These aren’t rare or hard to acquire.

Perhaps so, but there is a difference between an enemy independently discovering a weakness and telling them what it is. The first is strategy, the second is treason.

And when the OEM finds a vulnerability and withholds it, that's just "doing business" here in the states.

This is a weakness that can cause accidents, not some kind of remote exploit that would magically let an adversary make guns go off.

The only "national security issue" is that it's embarrassing.

This is pseudo-intelligence: "can be exploited by an enemy to bring harm to American forces" means nothing when talking about a metal gun. This isn't some computer vulnerable to RCEs or fly by wire bullets.

But what if the "enemy" has AI bullets with recognition and target tracking for the P320, so they can reliably target the gun with a smart bullet in order to have their gun go off and shoot themselves in the leg or something? /sarcasm

I'm with you... the idea that anything to do with a common side arm is worthy of "military secrets" protection is, as I said, absurd.

I'll believe that when they take down the innumberable youtube videos demonstraiting it clearly

Like telekinesis?

This comment is the perfect example of how saying something obviously wrong (or nonsensical) on the internet is the best way to get people to respond (of which I am now guilty myself).

The (reasonable) GP comment has 1 reply and the (unreasonable) parent comment has 5 already.

By this logic, it will be exploited even without disclosure.

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