What Punishment Should Virus Creators Be Slapped With?

What punishment should virus creators be slapped with?

Should they should be fined?
Should they should be sent to prison?
Viruses should be installed on their system? (and which ones)
They should type "I will not create viruses" 1,000,000 times.
Nothing--it's just a bit of fun!
Other (Explain)
I don't know.

 

I think it depends on what type of virus it was. You get some teenage programmers wrting completely annoying yet harmful viruses for their friends. I'm not saying thats right, and they should be punished with a jail sentence.
However if the writer deliberately wrote the virus to cause damage to computer systems or a large scale then that IMO is a serious offence. Jail sentences for serious crimes, and less extreme punishments for others.

I'd also like to see one of the writers see what it feels like to have msblaster on his pc.

 

I'd like a bit of irony. I think their punishment should be to spend hours working on counter-virus programs to defeat the viruses created by OTHER people, so they don't know how it works.

 

I was kinda thinking castration...but I guess a huge fine, something like $1 million or something (a huge number to let them know this is a serious deal) and some prison time. The huge fine would be my pick because it'd give a financial incentive to make people stop. Of course you could have excruciating torture to the death as a punishment and some people would still do it...

 

yeah there'll always be people who think they can beat the law and get away with it, i do think castration for males would be a good thing, no one wants their nads cut off...

 

Uhh they should all be fined AND jailed.

 

they should cut thier arms so they cant touch another computer
or a nice kick to the groin

 

If the prevalent OS was modular and security-centric, and if they had listened to security critics to this point, virii would be a rare and isolated occurance rather than the state we're in today. As it is though, it's not a question of 'if' an Internet-connected Windows PC will encounter virii, but 'when'.

-AT

 

Usually 4 minutes. Mine didn't even last that long, more like 30 seconds before i was hit by blaster (again).

Yea a fine would turn them off, but not all would stop.

 

Especially since many of the people writing virii are doing it to inject a trojan payload in order to take control of the machine, and those people are typically located in countries who's extradition laws act as a safe-haven for such behaviour. The possible gains ($$$) outweigh the possible risks for such folks, at least until the day Windows security makes it cost innefective to do so. Let me draw a parallel:
We lock & chain our bikes up for a reason. If the locks can be picked with one's fingernail, whoever uses such locks can expect to be victimized constantly. Raising penalties on stealing bikes might cut the rate of theft and vandalization somewhat, but not substantially, and not if the primary offendees were not subject to the same punishment as everybody else (or not subject to punishment at all). The only viable long-term solution is to not have a flippant attitude towards security. Get a lock that works, and use it properly.

-AT

 

***User banned for a week by ANTI-TREND***

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Edit: Apparently some admin and/or moderator cant handle another persons opinion here and is a ******* coward for not even leaving their name!

I personally think that if you get a virus its your own fault, No one forced you to connect to the internet. By connecting to the internet its an assumed risk that you might get a virus or have your computer fucked up. If you get your credit card # or some other valuable information stolen(or destroyed) by someone/something on the internet, its your own fault for storing it on your computer while you were connected. People dont seem to realize that the internet is still a complete free for all. If your life gets messed up because of a virus, its your fault because you MADE that possible for that to happen.
I dont think hackers or virus makers should be punished at all, infact I praise them for exploiting the security holes in operating systems and forcing everyone to "Wake up and Smell the coffee"

Before I hook up my computer to the internet I first backup all valueable and important info on zip disks and then delete it. Because of this the worst that can happen to me is that I loose minimal data and I have to reinstall Windows, but luckly I always keep a spare image of my installation so I can restore my computer in a matter of minutes.

Edit: For any admin/member/mod that feels threaten or doesnt agree with me, Prove me wrong then.



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As unusual as it may seem, I don't feel "threatened" by your oh-so-intelligent and well-worded answer. In fact, I agree with certain (albeit small) parts of it. But you still have a lot to learn and your experiences are limited, as strongly evidenced by this post. Not to mention the hostility factor presented here is not welcome in this thread; we have another forum explicitly for that purpose and we still don't allow personal attacks in there. I didn't inlcude my name in your edited post because I didn't think it was necessary, I thought that you'd see the problem and correct your behaviour -- problem solved. By this post, it seems I misjudged you. I've banned you for a week for the childish namecalling and swearing. If you want to behave like that, it's a big Internet, go someplace else. If you are chilled-out enough to be civil when the ban is lifted on 25-09-2005, ~12:00 PM, so much the better.

Have a nice day,
-AT

 

It's so difficult for Joe Sixpack to lock down their Windows boxes as to be unreasonable. No matter how careful you are, keeping Windows afloat is like bilging sinking ship. That is MS' problem, not my grandmother's. Installations of Linux, BSD, Solaris, MacOS, etc, etc, run as long as the hardware holds up. This is a Windows-specific problem.

 

Windows does need to be rebuilt from scratch, especially given the environment today. Will MS do it? I don't think we'll see it in Vista, but at some point, MS will have to come up with a completely new code for Windows seeing as they need to completely re-write the base code.

 

i'd still think a good kick to the groin is a good idea lol

 

There is actually only one reason I'm still using WinXP instead of switching to Linux. My games. I want all my games and stuff still, and none of them are Linux versions (obviously) so I wanna keep Win but ONLY for that reason. Can't stand supporting MS in the slightest.

But about viruses, I can leave my firewall off for days or even months on end and get no hacks or virii, the luxury of being behind a hardware router.

 

Why should we have to delete all of our data before we get onto the internet? It defeats one of the purposes of the internet if we have to delete our own data to access more. If windows wasn't so insecure, and didn't give root permissions to every damn program under the sun we wouldn't be having such a big problem. The internet shouldn't be a cess pit of worms, trojans and hackers, and we shouldn't have to take such drastic measures to make use of it.

 

I never said you had to delete your data, thats just what I do to prevent it from falling into the wrong hands. There are plenty of measures one can take to prevent such things from happening. I am alittle more paranoid than most people because i know what CAN really happen, and I do not think its worth the risk of possibly loosing your data.

I am not sure how long most of you have had internet access but I have had it since 1993. Back then if you got shafted by virus or hackers, no one heard your screams. You bit the bullet of your own stupidity. And thats how it should always have been. I personally also think windows was a mistake. It made it so you dont need to know jack **** about a computer to use one. Because of this, all these cranky bitches(and bastards mind you) who know nothing about computers are complaining when they blantly do something stupid on the internet and get shafted.

Maybe I am being alittle harsh but thats how it was when I was a young kid and thats how I feel it should always be. It would be my dream if we had like a 64bit DOS OS and MAYBE like a 64bit win95 shell to run ontop it. This would make it so you still would need to know how to use a computer. (now that motherboards and other parts are droping WIN32 and DOS support we are becoming like APPLE, throwing out support for the OLD OSes and forcing people to update. That was my biggest beef with APPLE zero backwards compatibility)

I feel that the internet should always be complete free for all, if people dont like hackers and viruses crawling all over the internet, then be a man and fight fire with fire. Find the hackers in the cyberworld and screw them over there. None of this ******** of taking it to the real world. I wish people would keep what goes on in the cyberworld IN the cyberworld.

 

by your logic that would mean that if you got a virus from some cracker (hackers find security holes and help fix them, crackers use them for other uses) you would have to get them back...that just isnt right, it would mean that the only people who could use computers would be the ones who know how to destroy someone else's machine...and thats just stupid...there would be people who just couldnt handle it..its just the most ridiculous idea i've heard.

 

You wouldnt HAVE to get them back, just if you feel the need for revenge(like I do quite often) If you can't handle it, then dont use the internet--- or computers for that matter. I dont know about you but I miss the good ole days where it was a complete free for all and not many people used computer and even fewer used the internet. It was heaven on earth for me. I know its sounds stupid and retarded in todays standards but thats because so few people know what it used to be like.

 

so basically you want computers/the internet to be exclusive, and you've got to get revenge on virus creaters if they get you... i honestly think thats just so unbelieveably stupid, its like the same principal as this - if you get robbed, rob the person back...just for revenge - and thats just plain stupid...i really cant see your logic, you want computers and the internet to be exclusive for those who crack and make viruses and those who know enough to fight back. People will use computers regardless of whether there are viruses or not, if the internet was only for those who knew how to get revenge then it would be useless...