alt Hacker NewsYes I also read the comment that way. The inkjet printer remark presumably refers to benchtop DNA synthesis machines which have been commercially available for a while now. (The linked article mentions the possibility of buy-back programs for old machines that don't enforce any restrictions.)
I guess it's not a bad idea to put basic hurdles in place but it would be a serious mistake to see this as any sort of comprehensive preventative. DNA just isn't difficult to manipulate.
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The thing is DNA just also isn't dangerous. It's fragile and everything in the environment destroys it - as noted it's literally a everything else which is the hard part.
This reeks of the Longtermists getting their influence into government. They were doing an entire round on YouTube about a year ago.
The vast majority of commercial synthesizers aren't inkjet. The OG DNA synthesizers are pretty simple - just a handful of pumps and valves and a packed silica column for each run. Anyone with a little mechanical engineering and organic chemistry training could build one (lots of companies in the past did just this.)
Kind of like owning your own darkroom, back in the day of analog photography.