Hackers Not Afraid of Being Caught

An anonymous reader wrote in to point us to an interview with Honeynet Founder Lance Spitzner where he says "Years ago it was hackers who were doing it for the bragging rights, now it's the criminals. The motivation has changed, hacking is now profitable and there's so much money to be made with very little risk to the actual hackers."

Comments

Re:I smell a business opportunity.

[CrankyWorm]

Threat of punishment is a motivational factor, but surprisingly, not a very significant one. Studies have shown people in general believe they can get away with crimes without being caught. The main motivation for not committing them is actually a moral one. People do not feel justified in robbery. One of the strongest correlations with robbery and violent crime worldwide is wealth disparity. In places where some people are very poor and others are very rich, despite the rich not necessarily working harder or being smarter than the poor, the rates of these crimes is higher. It is easy to justify robbery when you were born into debt while others were born into extreme wealth. And that is exactly what people do.

What a load of socialist crap aka Soviet propaganda.
Look at studies of proportions people in jail vs. social and racial groups, you'll see what the real picture is.