When Hype Meets Security: Why FAIR is the BS Detector You Need

The past two weeks in 3D printing have been a full-on zero-day event;chaos, confusion, and a whole lot of conflicting analysis. When Bambu Lab dropped its security updates, the response was immediate and visceral. At first, I was convinced they were using security as a smokescreen. Its like when vendors push “AI-powered” solutions that are just glorified regex, and I loathe regex. But the deeper I dug, the more I realized this was less about a security scandal and more about a cultural divide.

Initially, I got caught in the blast radius of misinformation. A statement about MQTT security struck me as misleading, and without digging into the actual implementation, I did what many in infosec regret;I reacted. The community outrage felt justified: Was security being weaponized as an excuse for walled-garden business practices? The collective mood was somewhere between a vulnerability disclosure gone wrong and a Twitter thread spiraling into an infosec flame war.

Determined to get better signal through the noise, I reached out to several print farm owners. While direct responses were elusive, I found their insights buried in YouTube breakdowns and community posts. What started as frustration evolved into clarity: the “old guard” of RepRap and open-source 3D printing thrives on building and tuning, while newer users prioritize plug-and-play convenience. This was less about security controls and more about philosophical fault lines in the maker ecosystem.

I consider myself part of the younger “old guard”. Only active since 2018, I'm straddling both worlds. And as I worked through my own biases, I found myself slipping into a familiar mode: threat modeling. What was the actual risk exposure? What was the probability of exploitation? Was this a critical vulnerability, or just another case of security theater?

That’s when FAIR took over.

The Factor Analysis of Information Risk methodology was built for exactly this kind of problem. The structured, quantitative approach forces you to step back and reframe security concerns through the lens of actual loss events. As I built out an ontology to assess the risk, it became clear: There was no credible attack path here that justified the initial alarm. The risk didn’t align with the fear, and the fear didn’t align with the facts.

The power of FAIR isn’t just in debunking hype It’s in making security a science rather than a superstition. It forces us to challenge assumptions, cut through social contagions, and provide clarity where panic thrives. If we applied the same level of rigor to vendor claims and security narratives, we’d be far less susceptible to knee-jerk reactions and more focused on actual risk reduction.

For those still making security decisions based on gut feelings, it’s time to upgrade your approach. If your organization isn’t leveraging FAIR yet, you’re missing out on the closest thing security has to a BS detector. The next time the internet is on fire over an alleged security flaw, remember: Panic is cheap. Analysis is priceless. Bambu Lab FAIR Institute Jack Jones Safe Security