[ale] OT - Executing virus authors...

[cshapiro at nubridges.com (Charles Shapiro)]

Kickin'. The writer gives an economic justification for executing virus
writers and distributors. Of course, he neglects to mention that  most
estimates of computer virus//worm damage are wildly exaggerated. The
factors driving the number up tend to outweigh anything which would keep
it to a sane value. A quick google search gives me an amusing essay
(http://loosewire.typepad.com/blog/2004/02/more_on_damage_.html) on the
provenance of that $50 * 10^9 per year figure used in the article. If I
was going to start killing people over it I'd want a number which was
likely to be true.

Frankly, the economic argument would make more sense applied to spammers
-- and the defenses I can deploy against them are more limited (yes, I
use spamassassin and it works for me). Heck, you'd probly only have to
kill a couple of them for the deterrent effect to kick in. I'd vote for
shooting Scott Richter on national TV, and my local email admins would
probably support me there.

-- CHS

On Thu, 2004-05-27 at 09:05, Keith Morris - IQ wrote:
> found this to be an entertaining article and thought you might get a 
> kick out of it.
> 
> http://slate.msn.com/id/2101297/fr/rss/