Death Penalty For Hackers? 1096
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?"
Obligatory BugMeNot Link: (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Obligatory BugMeNot Link: (Score:5, Funny)
It looks like you've hacked our registration system.
See you in the death row.
Sincerely,
The New York Times
Link to the ORIGINAL slate article (Score:5, Informative)
The original article (by Landsburg himself) is a bit more detailed, and can be found on Slate here:
http://slate.msn.com/id/2101297/ [msn.com]
Re:They're felons, they have no rights. (Score:4, Insightful)
But one of the best arguments I have against all death penalty (including murder) would be in the case of the conviction of an innoncent person. This speaks for itself. To avoid killing one innoncent person is worth not having the death penaltly at all.
Re:They're felons, they have no rights. (Score:5, Insightful)
a) give the person back his/her freedom back and
b) compensate this time-loss by other means, e.g. money.
In case of the death-penalty there... welll, there is just no way to undo that, now is there? One could think of compensating the relatives, but that won't do any good for the poor sucker who's just been fried/injected/shot/hanged/eaten by ants.
Re:They're felons, they have no rights. (Score:5, Insightful)
So what should hacking amount to? 7 years ago I was accused of hacking by a police officer because I told him I was programming on a Mud that was based in another state.
Hacking could easily be described as anyone who logged into another server with someone else's login/password. (Logging into NYT's web page with bugmenot) Deserves the Death Penalty? I think not.
So what DOES constitute a death-penalty hacking event? Something that causes a company 1 million dollars worth of lost profit? A life is worth that? Ok, how about 1 billion dollars, or a kazillion? Problem is, ****ALL**** companies, the RIAA, MPAA, and BSA have lied and and inflated their so-called losses by a gross amount. How can you put a life of a person in the hands of corporate greed?
There are OTHER things that need to be fixed first. I don't see how a multi-criminal rapist would get an easier sentence than a kid who altered a VB script that was already out there. I don't see how this whole article could even be considered when the crooks at Enron get off without the death penalty first. Truth is, the author is just pissed off his computer crashed one day I'm sure.
Re:They're felons, they have no rights. (Score:5, Insightful)
It's a social contract that has to be accepted by the majority to work. Think about it.
You impose the death penalty for murderers. 0.01% of the population is now anti-social and has a vested interest in laying society low.
You impose the death penalty for theft. 10% of the population is now anti-social and has a vested interest in laying society low.
You impose the death penalty for copyright infringement. 90% of the population is now under threat of death for their normal living behavior and has a vested interest in laying society low.
At this point, the majority of the people are now anti-social. Sometimes this means rebellion, sometimes it means subversion, but it eventually means the end of the society unless things change.
The social contract is where we all agree that this is the way we want to behave and the way we want to live. If it ceases to be about wanting to comply and becomes something handed down from on high (like the current trend of corporate-bought laws) then it's time to burn the rulebooks and start fresh. Personally, I think we're going to see that time arrive before we die. You can see signs of it all over the place. People don't respect the system. Instead of being precious and treasured to them as it should be, it is generally resented, subverted and ignored. This is all in addition to an ever rising level of violence by the general populace, both against each other and against representatives of the system (terrorism anyone?).
Figuring out the precise way to live and act that produces maximum economic productivity for the benefit of those who control the means of production and using the threat of law (which amounts to the threat of violence) to force everyone to comply is not the way to run a society, at least not in the long term. If it's harming the many for the benefit of a few, that is by its very nature anti-social. The way to run a society is to strip it down so that the laws reflect the way most people wish to live.
Killing people who refuse to behave in a fashion that increases profits for businesses does not seem very social to me. As a matter of fact, it sounds a lot like the kind of slavery that lends moral justification to "Killing the Masters so we can be Free".
Think about that the next time you lend your support to these fear-of-death type laws. Could be a day when you're the one in fear of your life because your lifestyle is no longer approved, or could even be a day when you're the one being slaughtered by those former-slaves-to-the-system you placed in that position with your support.
Intolerance kills.
Re:Obligatory BugMeNot Link: (Score:5, Insightful)
Your assertion that we don't think critically about our own culture is rather unkind. Many of the people here seem to spend a lot of time thinking about the way modern super-companies have co-opted all areas of human endeaver -- to the detriment of the individual and society at large. Many also think hard about the role that they as individuals and technologists in general play in society.
Political and corporate corruption is a much, much larger problem. Why not an article suggesting the death penalty for those offenders?
Re:Obligatory BugMeNot Link: (Score:5, Insightful)
Moreover, consider the "Crime". The hacker does nothing more than running a program on his computer. That it spreads is caused by broken systems and stupid users. Yes, cracking should carry an appropriate penalty. But the key word is appropriate. I'd say it ranks somewhere between illegal graffiti (if done just "for fun") and fraud (if done with a commercial motive).
Look, out, John... (Score:3, Insightful)
Just who is this John Tierney [nytimes.com], anyway? Judging from his whining about 'man-years I've spent running virus scans and reformatting hard drives', he doesn't sound like any computer profesional I know...perhaps if he was a bit more in the know, he'd know that although Microsoft had released a patch for this loophole on 13 and 28 April 2004, many companies had not applied this protection before Sasser struck. [bbc.co.uk] Perhaps some of Mr. Tierney's considerable ire should be redirected towards the hordes of lazy sysadmins who had a solution for the Sasser worm, but chose complacency over vigilance.
I agree. The very idea of such a penalty is evil (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't like how some people think that just because someone is obnoxious or causes minor damage (and let's face it, virus infestations are fairly minor compared to the gamut of actual crimes that people are let off the hook with much less punishment) that they should be put away for ever or even put to death. I think it reeks of a completely blown sense of proportion. Unfortunately, the voters who think this way are more prone to vote than people who are more sanely-minded.
Should the punishment for releasing a virus be tough? I don't think so. I think that it is a pretty benign "crime". It is crucial that we keep a sense of proportion when discussing the sentencing stage of justice.
Re:I agree. The very idea of such a penalty is evi (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I agree. The very idea of such a penalty is evi (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:I agree. The very idea of such a penalty is evi (Score:5, Insightful)
I have read that ~90% (seems high to me) of the world's population has never made a phone call. Probably a majority of people in the world have substandard food, water and shelter.
Yet in the western world, we define "poverty" as not being able to afford broad-band, or only having one game console, or only having basic cable.
Unless the parent(s)are total crack-heads, do any kids in the US REALLY go hungry? Call me a right wing fascist, but I find that hard to beleive. Food is cheap and plentiful here. You may not be able to afford steak, but most of the world lives on rice and beans, if they can get them.
We are SO spoiled.
Re:I agree. The very idea of such a penalty is evi (Score:5, Informative)
But perspective is a bitch. As a kid, you don't create the conditions, you deal with them. And as a kid, I remember distinctly going hungry.
In regards to crackheads, my best friend's mom was an actual crackhead. Mine was an illegal immigrant, so she couldn't work for much of my childhood... or worked sparingly. We'd both be hungry and we'd steal Utz brand potato chips from the bodega on the corner often on a summer night to get through to the next day. hypoglycemic headaches are a bitch when you're a kid. I remember them clearly.
In Harlem now, I can imagine that there are kids like me and my friend... just dealing with conditions that are placed upon them.
Re:I agree. The very idea of such a penalty is evi (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes, yes they do. Not many do, but some extreme cases do. There are a lot parents who you might call "total crack-heads." My sister works as a teacher at an inner city school, and she sees a lot of this sort of thing. Some kids only get a school lunch as a reasonable meal.
In the projects, there are two essentials -- a car and cable. Properly feeding and clothing your kids is secondary. It's not surprising given that most "parents" in the projects are stupid kids who got pregnant at an early age and never really learned how to fend for themselves. These are people who have no job skills and no initiative to improve themselves since they see every other pathetic loser around them as the status quo. They have no role models other than the flashy celebrities on the TV living hedonistically for little hard work (making music or playing games). As long as they're having fun and looking cool to their peers, everything's good.
The kids (most of whom weren't wanted when the mother got pregnant) are treated as an burdensome obligation in many cases. They're taken care of just as well as any other unwanted chore is -- that is, shoved off on a grandparent or even another child. My sister has seen a six year old left at home alone to take care of a two year old. (Poor girl got put in a foster home where the foster parents didn't care about her either and just wanted to spend the welfare check for taking her in. I digress.)
We are SO spoiled.
Exactly. This is why this sort of thing happens. If the parents honestly had to work to survive and didn't have their own parents to fall back on, I think these kids would be a little better cared for. For the most part, parents in the poor neighborhoods DO feed their kids, but the cheap crap they feed them isn't healthy for them. This is why obesity is on the rise fastest in the poorest areas of the nation. How much does a good healthy meal with vegetables cost vs. McDonald's. You do the math.
Re:I agree. The very idea of such a penalty is evi (Score:3, Insightful)
Yet in the western world, we define "poverty" as not being able to afford broad-band, or only having one game console, or only having basic cable.
Waaay offtopic, but lets play.
Poor, rich, poverty, money, and all of that are manmade objects. They are not real in "the real world". I would bet that a motivated homeless person eating out of trashcans here in the US can probably eat better than a majority of the people in
Re:more nuance (Score:3, Interesting)
i can give you an example of a meal. we might split a big bag of potato chips and get these things that we called "quarter waters" - these little plastic jugs of flavored sugar water with artificial flavor. Two kids could eat for $1.50-$2.00.
another poster made a point of discussing the rise of obesity in poor neighborhoods.
An interesting study has been done on obesity in New York City.
Re:I agree. The very idea of such a penalty is evi (Score:3, Interesting)
A quick Google gave me a total of about 600,000.
Re:I agree. The very idea of such a penalty is evi (Score:5, Interesting)
The contrast between urban poor and rural is also kind of striking; rural poor don't bother with any of the 'distractions' - they are too busy actually out working in a field somewhere to grow food, repair their house, etc. Rural poor actually make it a point to try and not have to depend on the government to get them out of dire straits - a marked difference from urban poor (observe: red counties vs. blue counties). In fact, sometimes it's hard to define what rural poor really is: I've known some people who by most measures were dirt poor, but they: owned a piece of property, had a house, had enough food to eat, and had enough running water and resources to not be stricken by disease, and enough surplus to have free time to go on nice trips around their area (the Appalachians). And these folks were not uneducated either. The big difference is that they didn't worry about gadgets, television, the latest fashions, whatever. They were content with what they had, and they had enough to not live a life of hardship. Yes, they had to work, but were they poor? In some ways I think they are richer than I am.
Re:I agree. The very idea of such a penalty is evi (Score:3, Informative)
Absolute Poverty: The inability to live off you income, afford food etc.
Relative Poverty: Those earning under 25% of the median income of a country.
Re:I agree. The very idea of such a penalty is evi (Score:3, Insightful)
Punishments should be harsher than they are currently, but death or a life sentence is way out of line for the crime. Once they start putting child molesters to death then maybe someone can start to think about it for computer crimes.
Re:I agree. The very idea of such a penalty is evi (Score:5, Insightful)
On the other hand, it is conceivable that people may die as a result of a virus in hospitals, for example.
To me, a virus release could range from a misdemeanor vandalism charge to possibly as high as manslaughter in the extreme case. The crime is serious, but you are right, some people do tend ot lose perspective. Perhaps a turn in the total perspective vortex would do some good.
Re:I agree. The very idea of such a penalty is evi (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I agree. The very idea of such a penalty is evi (Score:3, Interesting)
Considering both the money lost by business and disruptions to things like air travel, I'd say it's far from "benign," and definitely a crime. Death penalty? Hell yeah. But something harsher than a few months' worth of suspended sentence was in order on this one, IMO.
Kids, creating compute
Re:I agree. The very idea of such a penalty is evi (Score:3, Insightful)
When that happens the justice system is no longer a justice system at all but merely a means of oppression. But worse, it exercises oppression not only over those "convicted of crime" (which itself would have little meaning in an unjust system), but
Re:Look, out, John... (Score:4, Insightful)
Not wanting to install a patch to a production server is not necessarily complacency. In point of fact, in some cases, it *is* vigilance, assuming you've ever installed a patch and seen software mysteriously and suddeny cease functioning...it happens on Windows servers from time to time, if you didn't know.
To be fair, most of the companies that didn't install the patch for a reason like that probably made sure the systems were protected in other ways. Just couldn't let the "no install patch" = "lazy complacent sysadmin" generalization go unqualified.
Re:Look, out, John... (Score:5, Informative)
Actually, I do know...as it has happened to me more than once (Windows XP SP2 breaking WinFax and Windows Server 2003 SP1 breaking Windows Update immediately spring to mind). This is where the concept of a QA server comes into play. Any sysadmin worth their salt will have some sort of test server set up where they can test updates, patches, service packs, etc. without endangering their mission-critical systems. It's a simple process, but apparently thre's a lot of sysadmins out there who can't be bothered to exercise due dilligence...hence, my accusation of complacency.
Re:Look, out, John... (Score:5, Insightful)
Knowing what all to test... that's the hard part.
Re:Look, out, John... (Score:3, Insightful)
So yeah, Test Servers are important but if you are in a hurry it is sometimes better to skip them in case you crash them beyond repair and hold up the rollout.
That's easily the most insane thing I've heard all week. Such a strategy obviates the whole point of having test servers.
It is never better to skip the test servers. Period. Before a patch makes it to the production environment, it must be tested to ensure it is ready for prime time. If a patch crashed your test servers totally, then congrats
Re:Look, out, John... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Look, out, John... (Score:4, Informative)
Just who is this John Tierney anyway? Judging from his whining about 'man-years I've spent running virus scans and reformatting hard drives', he doesn't sound like any computer profesional I know...
1) He's joking.
2) He's a columnist who frequently combines analysis with whimsy.
3) I understand that the submitter and CmdrTaco can't be expected to catch this stuff. But with 67 +1 posts, am I really the only one to get it?
4) How freaking dense are you people? I'm looking forward to "Who is this Dave Barry fellow? He doesn't sound like any computer professional I know...
Re:Look, out, John... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Look, out, John... (Score:5, Insightful)
This "journalist" did just that.
The article is pure flamebait. I don't even start telling about the collective responsibility of software makers and the lazy sysadmins. The sasser worm was like a polite burglar: if it found the front door open, it went in. If it found it closed, it went away. Well, newsflash dear analysts: until you start paying attention to security there always will be a guy who writes a crappy virus (95% of them is _crude_) which wreaks havoc only because users and vendors like Microsoft of ignoring security.
RTFA -- this is not insightful (Score:3, Interesting)
This "journalist" did just that.
The article is pure flamebait.
Someone who can make an outraged (outraged!) post about an article based on a Slashdot writeup might not deserve so much respect either....
The journalist you're scorning (John Tierney) was very clearly NOT advocating the death penalty. He discussed an interesting report made by an analyst putting things in perspec
And how about... (Score:2, Funny)
Phrack? (Score:5, Funny)
oh, this is an easy one (Score:2)
Or pop-under...
Re:oh, this is an easy one (Score:3, Funny)
Punch the monkey to win a prize!
[click]
WHOMP!
Splat.
***
It's got kind of a poetic justice.
So hacker gets death... (Score:5, Interesting)
Yeah, we're looking at the right places for deterence.
Re:So hacker gets death... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:So hacker gets death... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:So hacker gets death... (Score:3, Insightful)
Here here!! This is more corporate interestes above the common peoples.
Suggesting that hacking can incur a death penalty because of the BILLIONS involved is VILE!
We so far have kept our government from killing citizens over money, is this what we want now? I thought life was precious and beyond monetary value?
So, we change laws so hackers get death for their billions in losses, but CEO's and other's at the "helm" or in places of power get carte blanche to do whatever they like in the "course of busines
Re:So hacker gets death... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:So hacker gets death... (Score:5, Insightful)
Negotiator: What are your demands?
K: We want a million dollar.
N: A million?
K: Yes.
N: Oh well, that's more than the value of a human life.
(hangs up and orders troops to blow up building)
N: (talking to collegue) And to think it was that very journalist who proposed the price, isn't it ironic?
Re:So hacker gets death... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:So hacker gets death... (Score:3, Informative)
Actually, it was kind of tongue-in-cheek, meant to illustrate the seriousness of the effects of some of the worst attacks. And actually, it's more than "millions" that things like the premier worms and viruses cost. It's "billions", real billions of dollars, just like the looting CEOs. And that "lost revenue" t
Death Threat? (Score:3, Interesting)
Companies Should Look Inside First (Score:5, Insightful)
Just like rape victims... (Score:3, Insightful)
You know, when a girl is wearing a short skirt, and she's walking at night alone? She's just as guilty of rape as the guy who rapes her, for not defending herself adequately.
</SARCASM>
That sort of thinking is nonsense.
Not that I agree with this article either. I have a hard time taking anyone seriously who uses a "cost-benefit analysis" to determine who should live and who should die. (Why not just kill all the old people?)
Re:Companies Should Look Inside First (Score:5, Insightful)
Why? In what way does leaving your front door unlocked cause someone to walk off the street and attempt to enter your home without an invitation?
The person who breaks in is still ultimately responsible, but you have to take some basic responsibility.
Well, which is it? The person who is "ultimately" responsible, as you put it, is THE person who is responsible. Ultimate, as in finally and completely. So, if you lock your door, but do it with an inexpensive lock, and the typical burgler just pushes through it... is that any different? The point is, the bad guy has to decide to take an action. If he doesn't decide to, then he doesn't wind up in your house. Period. And it's exactly the same with crackers and other malware.
Re:Companies Should Look Inside First (Score:3, Interesting)
every house in the world has a "Microsoft Super security system (tm)" installed so you shouldn't be able to get through the front door without a key.
then a guy discovers he can get into his house without a key so he makes a robot who opens other houses, closes the door then has sex with the TV to make another robot who goes into another house to fuck a TV.
I think this is perfectly acceptable since no one would know you don't need a key to get into Microsoft houses
yes, kill hackers (Score:5, Insightful)
priorites people
Re:yes, kill hackers (Score:3, Interesting)
"As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving child molestors approaches 1 (i.e. certainty)."
Think of the children! Won't somebody *please* think of the children?!
"viagra was powerless against my impotence" (Score:3, Insightful)
I hope that we reach that point far in advance of advocating the death penalty for electronic trespassers. Even a fan of stiff penalties should pause and reflect before going there based upon a dispassionate cost/benefit analysis.
The worse-than-death ideas in the article are amusing, though.
Comment removed (Score:3, Interesting)
The obvious solution (Score:5, Funny)
Won't help (Score:5, Insightful)
Except for the fact that the idea is horribly wrong from an ethical viewpoint, it also simply won't work. The efficacy of a punishment is more related to the chance of being caught than to the severity of the punishment.
Despite the risk of huge fines, almost everyone downloads movies at a regular basis, because the chances of being caught are near zero.
Ob Historical Note (Score:3, Interesting)
Over time, prisons became run-down and overcrowded. Conditions worsened. The situation boiled over, several times - perhaps the most dramatic was the Strangeways rooftop protest. At about this time, you again se
If Hackers can (Score:3, Insightful)
Text of Article (Score:4, Informative)
Skip to next paragraph
Related More Columns by John Tierney
Readers
Forum: John Tierney's Columns
Which of these punishments does he deserve?
A) A 21-month suspended sentence and 30 hours of community service.
B) Two years in prison.
C) A five-year ban on using computers.
D) Death.
E) Something worse.
If you answered A, you must be the German judge who gave him that sentence last week.
If you answered B or C, you're confusing him with other hackers who have been sent to prison and banned from using computers or the Internet. But those punishments don't seem to have deterred hackers like Mr. Jaschan from taking their place.
I'm tempted to say that the correct answer is D, and not just because of the man-years I've spent running virus scans and reformatting hard drives. I'm almost convinced by Steven Landsburg's cost-benefit analysis showing that the spreaders of computer viruses and worms are more logical candidates for capital punishment than murderers are.
Professor Landsburg, an economist at the University of Rochester, has calculated the relative value to society of executing murderers and hackers. By using studies estimating the deterrent value of capital punishment, he figures that executing one murderer yields at most $100 million in social benefits.
The benefits of executing a hacker would be greater, he argues, because the social costs of hacking are estimated to be so much higher: $50 billion per year. Deterring a mere one-fifth of 1 percent of those crimes - one in 500 hackers - would save society $100 million. And Professor Landsburg believes that a lot more than one in 500 hackers would be deterred by the sight of a colleague on death row.
I see his logic, but I also see practical difficulties. For one thing, many hackers live in places where capital punishment is illegal. For another, most of them are teenage boys, a group that has never been known for fearing death. They're probably more afraid of going five years without computer games.
So that leaves us with E: something worse than death. Something that would approximate the millions of hours of tedium that hackers have inflicted on society.
Hackers are the Internet equivalent of Richard Reid, the shoe-bomber who didn't manage to hurt anyone on his airplane but has been annoying travelers ever since. When I join the line of passengers taking off their shoes at the airport, I get little satisfaction in thinking that the man responsible for this ritual is sitting somewhere by himself in a prison cell, probably with his shoes on.
He ought to spend his days within smelling range of all those socks at the airport. In an exclusive poll I once conducted among fellow passengers, I found that 80 percent favored forcing Mr. Reid to sit next to the metal detector, helping small children put their sneakers back on.
The remaining 20 percent in the poll (meaning one guy) said that wasn't harsh enough. He advocated requiring Mr. Reid to change the Odor-Eaters insoles of runners at the end of the New York City Marathon.
What would be the equivalent public service for Internet sociopaths? Maybe convicted spammers could be sentenced to community service testing all their own wares. The number of organ-enlargement offers would decline if a spammer thought he'd have to appear in a public-service television commercial explaining that he'd tried them all and they just didn't work for him.
Convicted hackers like Mr. Jaschan could be sentenced to a lifetime of removing worms and viruses, but the computer experts I consulted said there would be too big a risk that the hackers would enjoy the job. After all, Mr. Jaschan is now doing just that for a software security firm.
The
Isn't "E" redundant (Score:4, Insightful)
...
E) Something worse [than death]
Seems like E is redundant for the population in question. And, by the way, I buy this assertion completely:
Hackers are the Internet equivalent of Richard Reid,
This is indisputably true. And having your network DOS'd is also the Internet equivalent of having your body blown to bits over the Atlantic. For that matter being forced to concede in chess is the gaming equivalent of having your country forced into unconditional surrender.
Where we get into trouble is figuring because situations are analagous they must then be equally serious.
Re:Text of Article (Score:3, Interesting)
the man-years I've
This is the stupidest snippet ever. 1 man-year == an amount of men, x, working on a problem for y days each, such that x*y = 364 days.
You, as an individual, cannot work more then 1 man-year in a year. In fact, I highly doubt anyone has ever worked 1 man-year in a year - you have to sleep sometime. This guy is claiming to have spend 365 may-days (8760 man-hours) running virus scans and reformatting hard drives. Working 40 hour weeks, that's 219 weeks. That's more then four years. And
Could someone please cite a published study? (Score:5, Insightful)
As far as I can tell, it's just something that sounds really good. You know, "Criminals will be very scared of being killed for their actions, because normal people are very scared of being killed." From the little I know about the workings of the human mind, most sociopaths don't react to things the same way the rest of us do, and people who cause massive damage on an any scale - economic, physical, emotional - are sociopaths.
Anyway, I'd just appreciate some good evidence for the "deterrant" hypothesis. Then I'll start to believe it might be a good idea.
Re:Could someone please cite a published study? (Score:3, Interesting)
Then killing them is the only solution, since 'curing' them is basically impossible and locking them up only gives them a chance to escape.
Theodore Dalrymple had an interesting article printed a few years ago when he was talking to prisoners about their thoughts on the death penalty: the conclusion was that prisoners were vastly _MORE_ supportive of the death penalty than the law-abiding. After all, they liv
Re:Could someone please cite a published study? (Score:3, Funny)
Clippy: "Hey! You didn't agree to the terms of your license agreement!
User: "Cancel"
Clippy: "You've just committed a capital offense!"
User: "Cancel"
Clippy: "Would you like to write a note to your family"
User: "Cancel"
Clippy "MS Death Squad(TM) has been dispatched. Are you sure you wouldn't like to write a note to your family?"
User: "Cancel"
Re:Could someone please cite a published study? (Score:5, Insightful)
There is quite a bit of evidence to the contrary, actually. People who commit violent crimes are usually either desperate or are personality types (like many juveniles and other dissociative types) that do not consider that they might be caught in their actions. Increasingly harsh penalties does little to deter the latter and often motivates the former category towards more violence. Why not risk a shoot out with the police if you're going to die if you go peacefully? Why not shoot the witnesses?
Practically there are two problems. First, most people don't understand the above and law-makers who support concepts the public does not understand are easy targets. Second, the issue is very emotionally charged and victims and people who empathize with victims are more interested in vengeance than doing what is best for society. Harsh punishments for other, especially nonviolent crimes (like illegal intoxicant laws), cause similar escalations of crime into violent crime. Personally, I don't believe in capital punishment. This is not because I have any problem with killing or any religious qualms. I simply have little faith in the accuracy of our legal system (which seems to be justified considering the number of people on death row who are later proven innocent). Our criminal justice system is not perfect, police are not perfect people, and legal representation is often very, very poor for those without a lot of money. I don't trust it nor do I see how anyone else can trust it especially with something as important as life and death.
Re:Could someone please cite a published study? (Score:3)
You're final statement (assuming forced choice scenarios) is a pointed example of what I wanted to point out. The value of the $50 difference in potential outcomes is viewed extremely differently if you already have the money. Remember, at the start of the scenario you have NOTHING, so ANYTHING you leave with is a GAIN. But if I give someone the $10
The death penalty is dubious as it is (Score:5, Insightful)
At about age 16, we had a school debate on the subject. I was on the 'pro' death penalty side, but that debate sowed the inital small niggles of doubt.
By the time I was 18, I realised the death penalty was completely barbaric. If just one innocent person is executed, that's tantamount to state sponsored murder. That's not to mention that capital punishment doesn't seem to deter crime anyway - Texas is executing more people than ever.
One of the interesting things - if you have a debate with most pro-capital punishment people, they go awfully quiet when you ask them what would they do if they were falsely convicted of a capital crime. How would they feel as they were about to be gassed for a crime they didn't commit?
I'm glad the EU outlaws capital punishment - it's a concept that should have disappeared in the 19th century. As Ghandi said - an eye for an eye and soon the whole world would be blind.
Re:The death penalty is dubious as it is (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:The death penalty is dubious as it is (Score:3, Informative)
All other costs involved are the ones about investigation and ligitation, not about sentencing.
Normally (if everyone is equal before the law) the cost of ligitation should be the same for lifelong sentences and capital punishement. If the costs of investigation are lower if the prosecutor is n
Re:The death penalty is dubious as it is (Score:3, Insightful)
"One of the interesting things - if you have a debate with most pro-capital punishment people, they go awfully quiet when you ask them what would they do if they were falsely convicted of a capital crime. How would they feel as they were about to be gassed for a crime they didn't commit?"
You would get pretty much the same reaction for any penalty. Proves nothing.
Justice and practicality (Score:3, Insightful)
Rape, child abuse, drunk driving, kill them all, we don't need those vermin around.
I like the idea of solving a problem for all time, you kill the offender and your risk of reoffending becomes zero.
However I can't support the death penalty today because it is impractical. We can't guarantee we caught and convict the right person, and it's too expensive. In our quest to limit executing the innocent we spend more than simply jailing them forever.
Re:The death penalty is dubious as it is (Score:4, Insightful)
Agreed. The Pro-death-penalty crowd always relies on at least one of the following two arguments....
1) They deserve it, and it will make the victims feel better.
Personally, I do not like the idea of living in a society where our justice system is based on inflicting misery on some people to make others feel better. End of story. By that logic (about to invoke goodwin's law) you could easily justify any genocide by saying "it makes me feel better".
2) IT is a deterrent.
Criminals are not perfectly logical beings, many of them are clinically insane. This doesn't even pass the laugh test.
Re:The death penalty is dubious as it is (Score:3, Insightful)
What I always use to shut up the right-wingers is how can they be pro-capital punishment and pro-life at the same time. One of their views doesn't jive with the other.
What exactly is so inconsistent about valuing the lives of innocent children more than the lives of mass murderers? How does it not "jive" to believe that people start off with a fundamental human right to live, and can lose that right only if they rob others of it themselves? That they don't just lose it by being an inconvenience to thei
Relax (Score:5, Informative)
The poster needs to have his humour detector adjusted. It should be obvious that Tierney is not quite serious about the death penalty. It's more than a bit tongue-in-cheek. Quote from the article:
Make the hacker spend 16 hours a day fielding help-desk inquiries in an AOL chat room for computer novices. Force him to do this with a user name at least as uncool as KoolDude and to work on a vintage IBM PC with a 2400-baud dial-up connection. Most painful of all for any geek, make him use Windows 95 for the rest of his life.
What has become of the traditional ways? (Score:3, Interesting)
Why not give those people a good ol' public whipping?
Instead... (Score:5, Insightful)
It just seems obvious to me. Am I missing something here?
Of course this is too harsh (Score:3, Insightful)
Do rapists, killers, pedophiles and other kinds of criminals get death penalties or lifetime jail ? Not in my country. Not in any country of the EU. Even in the USA, only killers get death sentences, and other kinds of crimes don't get you such harsh sentences (but correct me if I'm wrong here).
Immaterial "crimes" like cracking into a computer system are only crimes because we decide so. We decide so because it is a way of ensuring the stability of our economic system. That's fine, but if we begin to compare that in severity to physical crimes, where people get injured, where violence happens, that means that we have forgotten everything. If we jail more severely (lifetime) a computer cracker than a rapist (usually 2 years jail), then we are totally decadent.
Amusing (Score:3, Insightful)
Why amusing? Because "normal" people don't seem to turn their anger on some of the root causes. I mean, admit it, the prevalence of worms is really a symptom, not a cause. Anyone who isn't "new here" knows where I'm going with this, but I'll say it anyway: turn an eye towards Redmond for the real culprit.
For folks that a tire of having to run anti-virus, anti-spyware and constantly download and install "service packs" that break programs that they've already paid for, this one is for you. May we all learn to take security seriously in the *design* of the software, rather than tacking it on as an afterthought. Treating security like it is a trivial toy just so you can tack another bullet on the box is the real crime.
I'm serious when I say that I look forward to the "next generation" of operating systems that will hopefully take security FAR more seriously than this generation did. I'm not talking about Longhorn, I'm talking about the operating systems my children will be using (children I don't have yet). Will worms and viruses still exist? Sure. They always will. But at least we'll have some doors with locks, and perhaps a security system by then; right now, most of us live in a tent that we bought that advertised "Sturdy, intruder repellent vinyl!".
Asimov had an interesting idea here (Score:5, Interesting)
Since nearly everything involved computers, this left him very helpless. Restaurants had computers at the tables that you used to order, for example--so he could not get food at a restaurant unless he asked someone to order for him. Same for pretty much any purchase, or use of public transportation, and so on.
The idea behind this punishment (which was for one year) was to make him see how dependent society was on computers, and therefore how serious and bad a crime it was to do anything that threatened the security of or the public's confidence in computers.
Re:Asimov had an interesting idea here (Score:3, Insightful)
Maybe then you should read it to know why Asomov's is a bad idea.
Re:Asimov had an interesting idea here (Score:5, Informative)
Death Penalty for CEO's First (Score:5, Insightful)
If the corporate and governmental leaders want rule of law-they had better start by holding themselves accountable. Is is the corporate and governmental leaders that have created this state where the law is not taken seriously because they have exempted themselves from it.
The problem: (Score:3, Insightful)
If Ford, for example, made a car that due to a glitch caused it to run poorly and eat gas, there would be a lawsuit against them in no time flat. If they did it consistently, people would stop buying from them.
That doesn't happen in the software industry. People write crap software that costs "profitability" when it goes haywire ( which happens often ), and the decision makers just shake their heads and mutter something about being the nature of the game.
Virus-jerks aren't the problem, they are a symptom.
Why Stop There? (Score:5, Insightful)
And we don't have to stop there. Let's do the spammers too. They are the ones who profit. And the DDOS cartels; death to them too.
Lazy sysadmins who fail to patch their servers promptly: they're costing industry millions. They gotta die.
Who else? Howabout billionaires who aggressivley market insecure operating systems? It's all their fault, after all. Sayonara, Billy-Boy,
And as long as we're motivated by financial loss, let's have people who download illegal MP3 files. Get 'em up against the wall! Offering movies over BitTorrent? Off with yer head! Run Warez? Bye-bye! Say "Hi" to Bill for me...
What else can we do? Employee sickness costs billions to industry. Let's have the death penalty for catching a cold! It doesn't just serve as an incentive - it improves the gene pool as well!
How about criticsing the government? I'll bet millions are spent on spinning the facts every time some ungrateful fool goes and blows the whistle. Let's string 'em up today!
Think you're clever writing open source software do you? you're costing illegal software monopolies money with every line code. Don't think you've escaped our notice.
Oh, and let's include mindless trolls who write idiot stories for major newspapers, and the brain damaged editors who dignify such claptrap by printing it. Let's off them as well. I can't think of a good reason why, but in amidst all this bloodshed, who the hell's going to notice?
+++ SARCASM OFF
Great Idea! (Score:3, Interesting)
Extrme Punishment
Really, I'm not kidding this is a first-class idea. After all extending sentences to the point of life has worked so well for us in the War on Drugs! Really, you may think I'm being sarcastic but I'm not.
Over the years we have steadily increased the minimum punishments available for certain crimes on the general assumption that more fear for the criminals is better. This has reached an extreme in places like California whose 3-strikes law mandates that all triple felons (tax cheats and teenagers using the wacky weed included) go to jail For Life.
This benevolent program has blessed the state with a large and growing prison population that can make things like license plates, or just sit around and be a drain on the economy when they are no threat to anyone. It has also given California a large commercial prison system which cost the state untold dollars, and employs many fine and underpaid guards as well as passing large amounts of money off to contractors to build ever more large and dangerous prisons.
At present the state has found that by diverting at least drug addicts into treatment rather than the 3-strikes system they save as much as $300,000 per.
Moreover, despite ever-tougher sentencing there is no proof, in California, New York or anywhere else that these sentences have acted to reduce crime in any meaningful sense. One could argue that people should be afraid of the law and I will grant you that people are but there is no evidence that I have seen which proves (in a meaningful sense) that this changes the actions of criminals in any overall sense. Crime existed before, and it still exists.
As to the death penalty, despite normative arguments to the contrary there is no hard evidence that it has deterred even one criminal. States that use it have as much or more crime than those that don't. Similarly, states that have abandonded it (Illinois) have seen no attendent growth in crime. One could argue that this is a fluke I suppose but one cannot argue that it is positive evidence for the penalty.
At best the death penalty gives us a "Cathartic Release" as one author put it. But as Illinois' last governor noted that catharsis is not worth the lives of innocent people who are executed. And make no mistake, innocent people sometimes do get sent to jail.
So yeah, in light of the staggering evidence that meting out unreasonable and excessive punishments does nothing to reduce crime but only costs us unreasonable amounts of money and, probably, gets in the way of real solutions to our problems, I think that we should dive headfirst onto that rock.
Humour
The real purpose of the column, I suspect, was not to advocate the death penalty (but you never know) I suspect that it was really his attempt to make humour out of the situation (smelly socks) and to complain that the Germans aren't punishing their crackers enough. This is, as I see it, basically a joke. The problem is that at the core of the joke is the idea that more extreme sentencing is needed.
While the cathartic joy of knowing that the latest Sasser guy is sent to AOL's Helldesk for life is there that relly won't help anyone but AOL.
Personally I favor the idea of community service (perhaps more than 30 hours perhaps not). I want to see someone who causes such destruction help others in a meaningful way. I want to see them giving free computer classes to children in public schools, or helping libraries to setup their systems (under supervision) or help build something of value.
The bottom line is that there are two ways to think about crime and punishment. The first is to seek catharsis, to salve the basic desires for vengance or some public demonstration of retribution. This view favors things like the death penalty and lends itself to the state of affairs we have now, ever increasing prison terms, ever increasing pri
Is this guy physically retarded? (Score:3, Insightful)
Here's the problem. Design a system that is completely succeptable to malicious people, and be shocked when somewhere, among the 6 billion people out there, one is malicious. Here are your two solutions....
1) Make the system less succeptable to the darker aspects of human nature.
2) Just take out your fury on the guy who installed seti at home on a work computer.
In the physical world, this argument doesn't even pass the laugh test. Lets say there's a military base, but it has no fence around it. When children wander in and screw with things (perhaps causing serious damage), they are shot. That's hardly a solution. Put up a fence so some five year old doesn't wander in and drive a tank on the freeway, then maybe talk about giving more severe punishments to organized and competent attackers.
Here's another example. At Columbia a few years ago, an elevator in one of the dorms plunged several floors, though fortunately nobody was hurt. They had to repair the elevator. Let's assume that the cost of this came out to $100,000. Columbia blamed the students for jumping up and down in the elevator, nobody knows if those claims are true. In the end, it doesn't matter. An elevator is a moving piece of floor, if jumping on a piece of floor endangers you and causes damage to the building, it's the designer's fault, not yours. If you try to steal $100,000 from a liquor store you'd be shot, should you be shot for jumping in an elevator? No, because reasonable precautions would have prevented that. Save severe punishments for serious malicious attacks that threaten human life and for which there is very little that can be done. If you can build a fence, or a decent elevator, then just start with that, and worry about your bloodthirst later.
The issue here is the importance of obedience. (Score:3, Insightful)
The authoritarian view is that the law is absolute. No infraction is acceptable and the importance of the law always trumps the importance of the individual.
In this case, the concept of an "unjust law" is meaningless. If the law says I can cause you harm, then I can do it. If the law requires you do something that is harmful or evil to you, then you must do it. If you disobey or complain, it's you, not the law who are wrong. The law is never wrong.
In the context of this particular discussion, collective punishment becomes significant. The idea is that some particular group of people, as a whole, is perceived to be bad for society. (again, avoiding the oh so tempting inflammatory examples!). When an individual member of that class is caught breaking the law, they are held accountable for the perceived harm caused by the entire class.
The absolutist view appeals to our sense of righteousness. Holding one idea and never under any circumstances questioning that idea gives us a sense of surety. (there's a word for that; can you name it?).The promise is that with perfect compliance we will have peace and safety. Give us, your leaders absoulte powers and provide those who we will point out for you these extreme penalties and we promise you safety, security, peace, and quiet.
What is delivered, however, is never perfect compliance. So we feel moral outrage. We were lied to! We know what's right, and it's the law. So, it must be the violator who is wrong. Obedience is an absolute.
The penalty for disobedience becomes retribution, not justice. The motive for this penalty is moral outrage, not concern for society. In this context, the harshest possible penalty is perfectly reasonable. And, as morally outraged people, we dissociate ourselves from the person we penalize. They are not like us. We can do anything we like to them. Our judgement will never be applied similarly to us because they are wrong and we are right.
The pragmatic view is that society can tolerate a certain amount of non-compliance from its individuals.
This non-compliance, beyond being simply tolerated, is valued and honored with terms like "civil disobedience" and "conscientious objection". When the law is no longer absolute, the term "unjust law" has meaning.
The idea here is that a violation of the law is a discrepancy between the perpetrator and the law. Maybe the perpetrator is wrong. Maybe the law is wrong.
Here, the justification for any penalty is the good of society. Do we punish this person for what he did? For what he might have done? For what he might do in the future? These are decisions that we have to make now--judgements, not application of an absolute forumla.
When we make these judgements, we must also realize that the person we are judging could be one of us. That person is, actually, one of us. The disobedient member of society is no longer a moral outcast, and that means that whatever penalty we pass on him could be applied to us. Maybe we do choose to penalize the individual. Maybe he has harmed us. But it's not quite so easy to dismiss our frustration by beating up on a guilty person.
This mindset considerably devalues obedience for the sake of obedience. In this view, law provides that if a violator causes harm he is punished. But, typically, if the harm is less significant, even if the law has been broken, the penalty is similarly light.
The cost to individual freedom is taken into account when laws are written. It is possible for the lawmaker to say "it costs more of our individual freedom than the value we get by controlling this behaviour." The law then provides some incentive for obedience, but disobedience is expected and largely tolerated.
The cost of this view is that the individuals, being placed
Death for computer hacking is a bad idea (Score:3, Insightful)
1) It's too easy to make someone else look guilty. If you like the girlfriend of the guy in the next cubicle, buy a virus from your local friendly illegal substances dealer and make it appear that it was originated by the guy in the next cubicle. Then offer your most 'deepest' condolences to his newly-available girlfriend.
2) The hackers/virus specialists aren't the cause of the problem. The problem is poorly designed and written operating systems. Killing people who develop applications for the OS isn't going to help fix the OS.
3) The courts can't differenciate those who develop rogue code for 'national security' regardless of the nation from those who write it for amusement or corporate interests.
The best way to deal with virus writers is to make them liable to civil lawsuits for the damage that they cause. Straightforward tort law. Any 17-year-old hacker who realizes that he is going to have to write database front-ends in Visual Basic for the next thirty years to pay off the damage his cool virus has done will reconsider releasing it.
Also remind business leaders that using proprietary operating systems exposes them to underground attack because there isn't an open feedback loop where thousands of qualified people are constantly examining the OS source for flaws.
Junk Columnist (Score:5, Interesting)
For more perspective on this, and to see some of the subjects of his past columns, see here. [prospect.org]
Perspective (Score:3, Interesting)
In 2000 Micro$oft paid ZERO Federal taxes.
For the last FIVE years before Enron becoame defunct it also paid ZERO Federal taxes.
Boeing corporation, in 2003 paid ZERO federal taxes as well.
That's right - YOU paid more federal tax a few years ago then fricking M$, Boeing or Enron.
You want to save society some cash?
How about we start knocking off a few corporate monopolists before we start on the script kiddies?
Utopia. (Score:3, Insightful)
If all crimes, regardless of severity, were punished equally, there would be no incentive not to commit more serious crimes.
In other words, if a "hacker" knows the death penalty is the consequence, what's to stop them from using deadly force in their defense? Murder usually equals the death sentence, and since death is already a given for being a hacker, there is no loss for choosing to kill.
For getting a reaction, I commend the author. I commend them in the same way I'd commend John C. Dvorak. Well done, good troll, but your opinion is ultimately moronic.
another idiot, another day (Score:3, Insightful)
Hey, if we aren't going to dick around why not just make ALL 'serious' crimes punishable by death? And while we're at it, let's harvest the organs of these evil lawbreakers and use them to save the lives of countless upright citizens! I think Niven had something to say about that....
Max
Re:Death? (Score:3, Funny)
See...hacking causes death! Death to hackers!
Re:shutdown -f now (Score:5, Funny)
# kill -9 1
Re:is the punishment comissurate with the crime? (Score:4, Interesting)
Since part of the sentence for people convicted of computer crimes is that they can never use a computer again, they actually do lose their best opportunity to make a decent living.
Personally I think the idea of a death penalty for hacking is rediculous. People have lost their retirement savings because of the actions of a few executives at Enron, Worldcom, and Tyco. I do not hear anyone calling for "The Death Penalty for Intentional Accounting Fraud."
Re:Eeek! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:comments on TFA (Score:3)
And you hit the nail on the head. Your typical teenager who is dissatisfied with society will rebel in a destructive way. Computers allow them to easily do that. Telling them "if you write this piece of code, we're going to put you