© Jay Janner/AP/Press Association Images

In 2012, when still a law student at the University of Texas in Austin, Cody Wilson announced in a You Tube video that he would soon be able to print a gun, which he called the “Liberator,” using a 3-D printer. He managed to do just that the following year, and set up a nonprofit organisation called Defense Distributed, from whose website anyone can download the design. Wilson’s exploits in DIY firearms manufacturing, as well as his involvement in the development of a wallet for the digital currency Bitcoin, reflect his libertarian allergy to state power or regulation of almost any sort (he calls himself a “crypto-anarchist”). He was the subject of a New Yorker profile in 2013 and in January this year he was voted the fifth most dangerous person on the internet by Wired magazine.

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