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

Re:Look, out, John...

[robyannetta]

'man-years I've spent running virus scans and reformatting hard drives'

You wouldn't have that problem if you were running Linux like the rest of us.

Re:Academic

[hoggoth]

>> death penalty
> Good to see restraint in the discussion. We wouldn't want to lose our heads over this issue!

Nobody has brought up Nazis yet.

why punsh the hackers?

[NAT0]

what about harsher penalties for making insecure software?

There is justice for the rich and the poor

[br00tus]

In 1988, Robert Tappan Morris released a worm on the Internet which pretty much such the whole Internet down. He is white, has a well-to-do, well-connected father, and did no jail time.

Members of the Masters of Deception never crashed or disrupted computers (although one was falsely accused of crashing the Learning Link), yet their arrests in 1990 led to months or years of jail time. Many of them were not white, and all of them come from working class backgrounds.

This is how the soi disant justice system works. Ken Lay stole millions, and lives in a mansion and is a free man, but he is wealthy and let George W. Bush use his private plane. Someone who walks into a store and steals gets sent to prison. That is because the government, like all governments, exists so that one class can rule over another one, in the case of the US, the idle class over the working class.

Is it April 1st?

[koi88]

Is it April Fool's Day or does July 12th serve this purpose on the east coast?

Re:Article Text

[Shin Chan]

20 percent in the poll (meaning one guy)

Who did this guy ask for his poll? His wife and 4 kids or something? Since when did asking 5 people become a "real poll"? I don't give shit about the opinion of 5 unknown people. Now if he asked a couple of thousand then I would be slightly more impressed.

Stupid overfuzzed journalism.

Re:Asimov had an interesting idea here

[wkitchen]

That might also be a good punishment for folks who develop negligently vulnerable critical systems, and those who fail to make a reasonable effort to securely operate and maintain them.

Re:The death penalty is dubious as it is

[Jerry Rivers]

"Maybe we just shouldn't punish anyone?" Don't be ridiculous. We should punish only the guilty, but the punishment has both be realistic and recognize that no legal system is perfect and that the innocent do get convicted from time to time. Why do you have so much trouble with that concept?