Death Penalty For Hackers?

EMIce writes "The New York Times Op-Ed page has a piece entitled Worse Than Death (Obnoxious but free registration required) that calls for harsher 'hacker' penalties as a deterrent, quoting one academic as recommending even well, the death penalty - as a deterrent for the likes of Sasser author Sven Jaschan. Let's face it, businesses are becoming more dependent on their computers but they continue to be a point of failure, and subsequently, frustration through lost profits. Perpetrated breakdowns are now pushing that aggravation towards an edge. The author suggests commuting the idea of a death sentence into a lifetime of servitude doing viral cleanup. What role should enforcement play in such cases and is this too harsh, even considering the billions in damage that is sometimes caused?"

Comments

So hacker gets death...

[aicrules]

because he costs companies millions in lost revenue, but CEO of company who commits fraud and loots the pension funds for billions gets nothing or maybe a few years in prison?

Yeah, we're looking at the right places for deterence.

Re:I agree. The very idea of such a penalty is evi

[BewireNomali]

not so anymore. not in the united states. the very nature of poverty has changed fundamentally.

I grew up in a welfare hotel in Harlem, here in New York. In the 90s, as a teen, I had a computer. So did a good number of my friends. Granted, most of us were in an accelerated academic program, so most of my friends were geeks, but we for the most part had computer systems.

Kids now in my old neighborhood definitely have computers, and penetration is significant as computers are cheap. Local community leaders have impressed on the population the importance of computer literacy and parents have followed suit.
And Harlem is as poor as a lot of places in this country.

More importantly, having a computer and an internet connection is immediate distraction from poverty. When I was a kid, and to this day, cable penetration was very high, especially given that we had the second lowest per capita income in the city. It's the same reason drugs flourish in poor communities. When you're poor, you pay a premium for distraction. Computers these days are a relatively cheap distraction.

and so you understand, I remember times when my computer was new and our refrigerator was empty. I can imagine it not being different now for some kids in Harlem and other poor places in the country.