Missed the DEFCAD files?

There are places to go to get them.

• Torrents work (the Pirate Bay, for instance) and are out of the reach of the US State Department, the IRS, and the various other agencies that are being used as hammers to drive political nails. If you know how to work BitTorrent files, you didn’t need us to tell you this.

• They are easily found in the underweb. Google only takes you so far, but if you get off-google in the numeric realms (where we strongly advise you to only go with TOR or another anonymizing system), everything is available, including trouble. It’s the internet equivalent of the Mos Eisley cantina. On this subject: Michael Kassner at Tech Republic and Neal Ungerleider at Fast Company and again (differently edited version of same article) at NBC News.  In addition to the Underweb, there’s the deep web or invisible web, and there are darknets. The first rule of darknets is… you do not talk about darknets.

• The DEFCAD forums are still alive and people often point to file locations, which may be transient in nature. If you see it there and want it, hit it then. 

• A DEFCAD release clone is being maintained and updated by a fan here. This system’s got a learning curve if you want to do anything useful with it, but it’s comprehensive, complete, and free. Reading the Read Me file will make the learning curve easier to ascend (don’t ask how we know that).

As a tragic figure in a science-fiction movie said, “You can’t stop the signal.” That doesn’t stop certain characters from giving it their best shot.