Should computer virus writers go to jail?

Yes

7 of 45

by Jon Dainty Sr.

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How many different viruses live in your computer as you read this? What are they doing with or to your system? Are you the only one using your e-mail outbox?

All these are questions I had to answer in the past year. At one point, my office computer was so tied down by a "robot" virus that it was hardly usable at all. When the technician got finished with it, he found more than a thousand other malevolent pieces of computer "art" that hackers had apparently contributed.

To say that I was put out is an understatement of historic proportions. I didn't want these bothersome, anonymous people sent to jail. I had more creative ways for them to pay for their making my life difficult. Imagine a computer programmer/hacker without access to any programmable electronic devices for the remainder of their life. Envision this same (usually) young person being taken to task for the costs incurred in cleaning up (usually again) his messes. These are punishments I believe would be effective. But what are the realities?

FREE AND OPEN INTERNET
The Internet is not a perfect tool; things sometimes go badly wrong. I should point out that it is the USERS of the tool, not the tool itself, which make the mistakes, commit the crimes, and screw up lives (sometimes unwittingly). For that reason, just as with crimes and errors involving cars, skydiving, guns, and a host of other tools and sports, it is the people who intend harm who must be tracked and taken out of circulation.

The antivirus industry must update its consumer files daily in order to attempt to keep up with the intentionally hazardous output of hackers, crackers, and probably a thousand other unfriendly and antisocial types of criminals. That industry's output must be purchased by people like you and me at an annual cost in the billions of dollars. Is there no way to stem the tide, so that the full promise of the Internet's communications potential may someday be realized?

Microsoft Corporation has in recent years put some of its considerable resources to work tracking damaging attacks conducted via the Internet. The U.S. government funds an FBI effort to do the same thing, with prosecution and homeland security issues in mind. But if we catch them, short of cutting off their arms at the shoulder, how do we ensure the safety of the millions of active nodes which comprise the Net? We don't!

LIFE ON THE OUTSIDE
Regardless of the efforts we field to combat crime, whether IRL ("in real life") or online, we will never find all of the unhappy, maladjusted, diseased, and criminally insane individuals whose lifework is to make our lives a living hell. Admittedly, some of the viruses released into the Net are probably capable of little damage or are meant as a prank. This is sour consolation when a power grid, a water system, or a nuclear power plant is at risk.

Our dilemma is in securing as much of our important data and critical infrastructure as we can, without permanently crippling the wonderful aspects of the Net's worldwide capacity. Some of the largest American communications providers would like to take this security issue as their own project, but that simply defeats the openness of the Net for everyone. Additionally, they want to do this for their own monetary profit rather than for the common good, and that is simply unacceptable.

This is life. It has to be lived on the outside, in the light, among other, sometimes radically different, people. Their activities might scare us, amuse us, or damage us, but this is the world we've been given. What can we do?

We can't put all the hackers in prison. There aren't that many prisons, and we have just about enough as it is. What we ensure is that we've hardened our own systems, protected our machines against the viruses and worms that we've been warned about, and try to live our lives. Maybe someone will come up with a better set of protocols; I hope they do. Until then, only proven criminals should go to jail. Where those are computer virus writers, if there is any justice, they will be required to provide restitution to those they have harmed. Will it be enough? You have to decide.

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