Community poll forum: What punishment should be handed down to virus creators?

Without sounding liking I am straying off topic, I want to broaden the definition of virus creators to include other low life types the ones who author sneaky, maligning malware (the nastiest breed of adware/spyware). Just like viruses come in many different levels of nastiness, some light and some more seriously harmful, there is a new deadly breed of spyware that goes far beyond just bringing adware into your system. It comes in the form of some serious hi-jackers that are becoming almost impossible to remove. I am not just talking about home page hi-jackers but system hi-jackers that are becoming next to impossible to remove because of ever increasing levels of advanced and evasive dirty gotcha tactics.

Im talking of the kind of malware that puts its dirty meat hooks into your system then like a good buddy system advisor pretending to be on your side dutifully tells you are infected and directs you to their clean up product with an evil grin. It is the vandalistic game the viral creator plays with a deadly dose of electronic extortion thrown it. Pay us to protect you from us or else. Both viral and malware creators share the same disdain and disregard for their victims but this type of malware now tries to profit from your misery.

What punishment should be handed down to the malware and virus creators? Considering seriously the unbelievable amount of time and human energy being robbed daily in totality in many millions of cases, the value in dollars would be enough to alter the course of many starving and struggling nations. I wont even make a suggestion except to say seriously that is some cases a life time jail sentence not be too harsh.

Rui Belo

The punishment is simple - jail for life, no parole, no computer access, no uncensored correspondence - period. And in the event they have any assets - these are sold and the monies raised goes towards hunting down other virus creators.

These punks cause too much economic damage throughout the world - they claim to be after the corporate establishments, but the brunt of their "creations" hurt the average person.

Hence, jail for life, no parole, and no computer access no uncensored correspondence - period (assets sold).

In the event anyone disagrees with this statement - just start reading about the impact these viruses are causing throughout the world! Done? You lose your argument!

I think they should server time for every computer they infected, AND they should never be allowed to use a computer or other simular device ever again. This includes any handhelds, friend's computers, etc. They should not even use public computers.

5 years for first offense, with no access to computers, and ten cents for each infected computer. Second offense, double.

As I have been hit more than 4 times within the past week and been forced each time to format the drive and start over from scratch, I feel like we should have them all beheaded.
--David

Lobotomize the virus creaters to remove their programming abilities. Nuf said

I would like to say give them a day per computer infection, that would be life for first offence. Too much? Then a mandatory min. sentence of 5 years for 1st.(No Early parole)offence! and as stated 10 for #2 20 for #3 Life for #4!!! No Joke.

The punishment should be a minimum of a $100,000 fine and 5 years probation for the first offence and just like any other felon they should be denied the use of weapons including computers forever.
I don't buy that the people that do these things are harmless, or innocent pranksters. Nor are they misunderstood exceptionally brilliant prodigies. The people who develop and propagate viruses are malicious thugs. They cost all of us billions of dollars even those who dont use computers help pay the freight in increased costs passed on to consumers for corporations to protect themselves.

I think virus writers are just exposing weaknesses in an operating system/code. They are actually doing a service in that respect. The antibodies/fixes are written to make the operating system/code stronger.I do realize that it is damaging and costs money, but they are just exposing weaknesses that should not be there and since Micro$oft inner workings are not known to the general public, I am thinking that they have the backdoor(s)/vulnerabilities built in so they can control/revoke your licence to use your computer with "their" system. read the EULA. Sony was not smart enough to hide their backdoor/rootkit.

At least 100 years, with ABSOLUTELY NO ACCESS to a COMPUTER for the rest of their life.

Personally I don't always believe in the 'cruel and unusual punishments' clause... if you write a virus that damages a significant number of computers and get caught.. and are proven to be guilty with no doubt..

then I suggest removal of each finger with bolt cutters.. if a particularly nasty bug (lop.com, melissa, nimda, et al) then one joint of each finger at a time... no fingers = no writing of virii

and if you're stupid enough to dictate another one then other appendages will be removed...

cruel? yep
unusual? yep
effective? let's find out...

I come down whole-heartedly on the side of jail-time, but it does raise some interesting questions. For example, we typically treat property crimes as felonies or misdameanors depending on the amount of the loss and other factors. How do we quantify the damage done by the virus writers? And who is actually more guilty...the person who writes the code, or the person who flings it to the far corners of the web? Do we hold accountable those who use no anti-virus meaures and thus assist in the spread of such nefarious things?

No use of technology for 10 years ore more!!!!!

I believe that if the police or authorities catch someone who makes a virus they should recieve a punishment based on the damage of the virus. A virus maker should recieve a punishment of community service equal to the length of time it takes to remove the virus from a non-technical user multiplied by the average amount of people infected by the virus. So if norton estimates that 1 million computers were infected by a trojan horse and it takes about 2 hrs to remove the infection than the virus writer should have 2 MILLION HOURS OF COMMUNITY SERVICE. And if anyone thinks that's harsh than they haven't worked in an IT department and had to clean an entire office of computers from a simple virus. It is sooo time consuming and annoying to clean a virus from a computer and I think a virus makers should feel the pain and frustration of what they have caused with a few hours of scripting.