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The Economics of Executing Virus Writers
applemasker writes "Slate.com has an article titled Feed The Worms Who Write Worms to the Worms which argues based on economic theory (and somewhat tongue-in-cheek) that it is a 'better investment' to execute the creators of worms, virus and trojan authors, than murderers. Anyone who has tried to resurrect a network or computer after a nasty infection may agree. Although the author does not seriously argue for capital punishment for the script kiddies, it does raise some interesting issues about how much 'value' society puts on certain types of harm and the author's view of a government's role in protecting us from it."
Politicians love to associate their names with "get tough on crime" laws that raise the punishment for certain crimes... but you rarely here about anybody supporting lower sentances for crimes.
Is it just me, or is there an inflation effect hitting our criminal justice system as over time the punishments keep getting higher for the same crimes...
"They never would be missed, They never would be missed."
First, let's execute some spammers, _then_ we can move on to the virus & spyware folks. Viruses and worms only are a problem for one segment of the online population, spam has to be dealt with by all of us.
Well, there's a thought. Though some would say the punishment wouldn't really fit the crime. Unless a worm/virus/whanot caused someone's death because it screwed up the computer that ran air traffic control. Or, you know, something a bit less unlikely and somewhat more likely.
Kind of scary the process by which people can take anything and reduce it to a number somehow. That's probably why I hated statistics class.
>insert witty sig file here
They may not fear death. I'd suggest limiting them to 33.6 kbps internet connections. That's the real hell.
Killing people is wrong. No matter who does it.
Tounge-in-cheek or not, this article is comparing a person's life to a dollar figure. Now, I'm as much a fan of cleaning out virii as anyone else, but that's just messed up. How much is a human life worth?
<insert witty linux comment here>
Execute the lazy/ignorant sysadmins and infrastructure guys who fail to keep their servers patched, have their firewalls set to "Allow all" and who leave the default passwords on their systems.
Yeah, right.
As soon as there is a virus/trojan/etc. that spreads easily and is highly destructive (overwrites crucial hard drive sectors, for example) I think everyone will start seeing the punishment of virus writers in a whole new light.
I always save my last mod point to mod up a good troll. You people are too serious.
by putting them in a room with a bunch of spammers on penis enlargement pills and viagra.
ok, if you are thinking about executing a person for writing a piece of malicious software (that didn't even cause any human harm), you need to step away from the computer, turn off the power, get out of your office and walk through the woods for a while.
and if you come back and tell me "financial harm is human harm" i say go back and walk through the woods some more. maybe read a book while you are out there... something that doesn't mention computers. Something by Emerson.
The problem with capital punishment are that (1) it's irreversible, and (2) it is dangerous to give governments that kind of power. The economic costs resulting from these two properties of capital punishment are probably enormous. The first means that you need a complex judiciary and review process (and, in fact, executions seem to be more expensive than life imprisonment). The second means that it creates a serious risk that governments become totalitarian.
I suspect the evidentiary situation for virus writers is even hazier than for your average murder, so capital punishment would, on balance, probably be worse.
Incidentally, there is an easy way to avoid paying a high cost for the effects of viruses: don't let them infect your systems in the first place. And that's easy: keep them patched and up-to-date. So, while virus writing isn't nice, I think people whose systems get infected are contributing to the damage through their negligence. By comparison, while stealing cars is illegal, if you leave your car unlocked and running with the key in the ignition and it gets stolen, you won't get much sympathy from either the police or your insurance company.
This is just dumb. Perhaps if the monetary value were higher than the 83 cents they've calculated. They also fail to take into account that the safety increase is not just for that individual, but also for everyone they care about. So, would you rather have 83 cents, or the knowledge that you, your family, and friends are slightly safer?
Stupid, pointless article.
You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life. --Winston Churchill
I first laughed at the simple concept of it.
But what happens if a nasty worm/virus starts disrupting food transport, shredding hospital documents, places trains on the same track, open the doors in the CDC, route airplanes into skyscrapers?
A properly designed infection could wreak havoc, and kill hundreds, thousands?
I realize that I'm being overly dramatic, but there's probably a point where capital punishment WOULD be a justifiable answer.
While reading the article, just bear in mind that Slate is owned and paid by Microsoft.
Ironclad Security only exists when you have Chuck Norris on the shift. Do we really have to discuss this? (Plutonite)
I tired of "white-collar" crime that ruins family, lives, and dreams getting such light punishment.
A ghetto-born man who kills a police officer gets executed.
A suburb-born CPA that ruins the retirements of thousands of families gets a slap on the
wrist.
It's not fair, just, or right.
Moneyed corporations, non-working 'poor' and criminal prisoners are turning productive citizens into tax-slaves.
"And then we nuke it from orbit; it's the only way to be sure..."
I have something in common with Stephen Hawking...
Oh yeah, nuking the producers of the most-used OS on the planet would be brilliant.
This sort of joke isn't funny, its just demonstrative of an unhealthy vitrol towards Microsoft. Linux is great, no one is saying otherwise, but it has serious lackings. It lacks ease of use, unification, game support, hardware support, etc. Quit bitching [everyone] about Microsoft, and help develop a viable Linux solution to the home user desktop.
"Stumble before you crawl"
Good to see that the style of Jonathan Swift's famous modest proposal for aleviating poverty in Ireland is still around. His idea was to treat impoverished Irish children as livestock to be fattened up for consumption. A tongue cannot become more firmly embedded in a cheek!
Drill baby drill - on Mars
I would argue that virus and worm writers fulfill an important role in software ecology. Billions have been spent on making computers safer from Ninja, CodeRed and Sasser. Without these threats the money would not have been spent and nearly every PC would be wide open today. Can you see how much power that would give to those who do not fear the death penalty?
If we were to kill all harmful bacteria today, infections will go back dramatically. But when, in 80 years, a new strain happens to come into existence, nobody will have any immunity system and humanity will be wiped in 24 hours.
A virus writer creates a computer virus which causes a minor inconvenience for a relatively large number of people (and a major inconvenience for a few system administrators). Keep in mind that these people are the people who open up a word document called "I love you".
A murderer kills someone. He ends their life, forever. They will no longer feel happiness, or sadness, or laugh, or click on "I love you" attachments". A murderer devastates the lives of the countless people who are friends and family of their victim.
These two acts are not comparable. An "equivalent punishment", be it captial (which I'm opposed to in either crime) or some other, only makes sense if you have a greatly over-inflated view of the "value" of economics.
I think this is quite interesting.
When estimating the value of human life when making laws, a decent estimate would probably be the value of that life to society.
I'd pay quite a bit to continue my own life, or someone in my family, but that's for selfish and sentimental reasons only. Odds are, people in Montana couldn't care less whether I live or die, despite what some might say to the contrary. There are only a small amount of people who are actually aware and affected by my existence.
A simple means of measuring an individual's effect on society as a whole then is the economic impact that person would have over his lifetime. Like him or not, Bill Gates will obviously have a much greater impact on society over his lifetime than your average joe. Many more people have an interest in his continued well-being than they have an interest in mine.
Should this be weighed when making laws? I don't know. It would seem to me that since Bill Gates has a measurably greater impact on society, he deserves greater compensation for wrongs done to him and also has more responsibility to do the right thing, knowing that his actions affect millions.
But the economic impact is not the only consequence of crime. I'm not scared to walk through a bad neighborhood at night because I think Martha Stewart is going to jump out of the bushes and rob me. Her crime has little impact on the order of society and the perceived safety of its citizens.
Similarly, should we prosecute someone who kills a homeless man? They have little impact on society, and their lives aren't worth as much in economic terms. I think, however, most people would reject the idea that some murders are more ok than others based on economic reasons.
If moderation could change anything, it would be illegal.
One of the major assumptions by the author of the article (and most people) is that the death penalty deters murder. It doesn't.
:(
;P
Check out The Death Penalty Inormation Center for more facts, info, and studies.
All of the authors economic number crunching is totally invalid because of this.
However that doesn't mean that I don't WANT to execute them.
Drill baby drill - on Mars
Since we've thrown the entire world on one ad-hoc network without securing anything, those pranks are damned expensive right now and there's a real problem. But.... most of the people causing these untold trillions of dollars of damage are bored teenagers, just as antisocial as a lot of other teenagers who are out smashing post office boxes, spray painting walls, and sniffing glue, that happen to be somewhat adept at using a computer.
There do seem to be a few pro's in the field that could be linked to the spam operations and possibly even corporate and government espionage, but they're still seriously in the minority.
So - does some kid doing something stupid warrant destroying the rest of the kid's life? Do these kids really understand the consequences of what they're doing and what kind of destruction they're causing? I think in most cases - no, they don't. In the rest, well - they're still kids. Punish them, let them know what they did was wrong, but don't try to lock them up for the rest of their lives or bury them under the jail for what to them seemed like a funny prank. There's a huge difference between creating a piece of code and shooting someone in the head.
I think we need to do two things.
I write code.
Given that Microsoft will write software that can be exploited, I'd much rather have it exploited by something that reboots my machine and some script kiddie gets a kick out of it, than have it exploited secretly and repeatedly by someone with worse motives. If we didn't have these occasional public displays of how insecure our software is, it would be far easier for other people to take advantage of it, people like the terrorists and governments. That would be a hell of a lot worse than having all your machines reboot, or even losing a hard drive here and there.
The real solution is quality software, and punishing virus writers won't get us any closer to that.
This argument is of course only valid as long as the viruses are relatively benign.
For a virtual crime, the right punishment probably should be virtual death. Lifetime ban on using computers.
That might make a hacker think twice.
It's just you.
Some penalties for some crimes have gone up over the last 15 years (and some have gone) but over the last, say, 100 years, the severity of punishments served out has gone down dramatically. Think of the hanging judges in the wild west, or the justice system of any European country 150 years ago.
And since humans learn much more slowly nowadays, it takes longer sentences to teach them a lesson, right?
;)
The point is that humans aren't inherently bad, except in some rare cases, but some people get some fucked up ideas about ethics. So, the people who are causing significant harm get yanked out of society for a bit, deprived of some of the things they enjoy, in hopes that they will not only be negatively reinforced, but that they will also have time to think and realize why what they did was inappropriate.
Increasing sentences is only going to drive people batty.... at least, I say
--TheOrangeSquid Is it any wonder things seem so awry? We swim in a sea of confusion and don't have to think to survive
Jesus, I can't believe you actually wrote what you did. Riiight, of course we need to learn the "mentality that crime can be low enough."
It's only ever low for those who haven't been raped, murdered, stabbed, robbed, etc.
For those that have, the rate is always too high.
I can see which of the two categories you fall in.
Jeez, people, it's satire! This form of satire has been around for a long time. I love how someone can write a "punishments go up, never down" hyperbole and another can write "how can we compare human life to a dollar figure?" (Hint: It's done all the time) and it gets modded insightful. I hope the original posters were extending the joke, but somehow, I get the sense that they were posting in earnest.
If you don't see the humor in this article, I beg of you to abstain from watching Farrelly Brothers and Austin Powers movies and recommend you pick up some books and read some Jonathan Swift or Oscar Wilde, to name a couple. There's more to humor than dick and fart jokes, and if you understand that, I'm sure you'll live longer.
That guy took the words right out of my mouth. There is a cost of reducing crime, and it is not worth my freedom.
That said... I have been robbed, my wallet was taken from a locker at a gym (yes it was locked, no I never figured out how they got in...) I found my wallet, devoid of all cash, in a nearby trash can. I was also assaulted about 10 years ago, fortunatly no harm came to me, he took one swing at me, missed, and I ran... A lot faster than he could...
I think crime is pretty low right now. Of corse I wouldn't complain if the crime rate was lowered, but if big brother is needed to lower crime, I will take my chances, thank you very much...
"I'll have a Guinness, no wait, make that a Coors Light" -Grad student I work with, who shall remain anonymous...
P.S. We're currently looking for couriers, so if you've got mad bandwidth then apply within!
Breakfast served all day!
Ahem.
I've been both stabbed AND robbed.
Personally, I think the 'horrendous crime problem' in the US is more a product of the Media trying to sell advertisements than an actual problem. Hell, a study came out a while back showing that violent crime in the UK was the highest in Europe... and a throw away line in the report was that the US ("Known for its violent crime") was lower than any of the European countries being compared.
Yes. Crime is a problem. But, like the grandparent said, there comes a point where the cost of trying to lower crime more is more costly than the crimes themselves...
"If we let things terrify us, life will not be worth living."
- Seneca
Indeed, skepticism abounds today, for I cannot believe that you wrote what you did.
There are these wonderful things called "statistics" and arguments like yours are designed solely for the purpose of keeping people irrational and avoiding thinking about them.
The basic thrust of your argument (and I'm hoping that thrust was unintentional) is that, so long as there is a one in six billion chance of being the victim of a violent crime, we as a society are responsible for taking whatever measures are necessary to alleviate that risk.
Let's pull a number out of the air and say that the U.S. spends $100B for state and federal law enforcement every year. Let's also imagine that each time we double that number, we halve the crime rate. Maybe it would be worthwhile to spend $400B to reduce the rate to 1/4, or $800B to get it down to 1/8th the current level. But what about 1/256th? That would cost $25T, which would mean that pretty much the entire economy would be channeled into crime prevention. Forget other wonderful things like medical research, we might not even be able to feed ourselves. And still, people are getting killed, raped, stabbed, and shot.
Nothing in the previous analysis even mentions the secondary costs that come with living in a de facto police state.
I think you're going out of your way to be insulted. When the grandparent says crime is "low enough," he doesn't mean that we just don't give a crap about the victims who remain. He means that the costs associated with getting it down further are unjustifiable. Going back to my earlier example, imagine if we halved the current law enforcement funding. Assume that caused the crime rate to double. Would that be a bad thing? Certainly. But that doesn't eliminate the possibility that it might be the best thing to do, if funneling that money into medical research lead to an overall improvement in the quality of life.
I could sit here and make precisely the same arguments you do, but in favor of such medical research. After all, for the parents of a child who died of cancer, there is no way the cancer rate was "low enough." But how big a tax increase would we allow to reduce it further than we already have? Would we allow the government to step in and start outlawing certain foods, or require that every citizen take an anti-oxidant tablet every morning? Would we sit by while those who refused the pills were jailed?
The whole idea is that we allocate things like resources and government regulations where they will produce the most good. Simple economics.
You want the truthiness? You can't handle the truthiness!
a study came out a while back showing that violent crime in the UK was the highest in Europe...
If you believe that 25 fistfights is more violent crime than a single gunshot to the head, that is...
Here is a report of international crime statistics which shows that there is, in fact, far more violent crime in the US than in Western Europe.
The following are average numbers of homicides per 100,000 inhabitants per year from 1997 to 1999
US : 6.26
England : 1.45
Germany : 1.28
France : 1.63
Norway : 0.85
Russia : 20.52
S.Africa: 56.49
Interestingly, the land of the free also has the extremely high prison population (from the same source, again per 100.000 inhabitants)
US : 682
England : 125
Germany : 97
France : 91
Norway : 56
Russia : 729
S.Africa: 327