Death Is Too Good For Hackers

The rascally John Tierney writes in the New York Times that death - let alone 30 hours of community service - is not harsh enough a punishment for Sven Jaschan, the whoreson rogue who released the devastating Sasser Worm on the world's computer's. His jumping off point is a study by Professor Steven Landsburg of University of Rochester.

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.

But Tierney, appropriately, is unenamored of capital punishment for destructive teenage nerds. Like any good disciplinarian, he wants a punishment - one worse than death - that better fits the crime.

The experts weren't sure that any punishment could fit the crime, but they had several suggestions: 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.

Brutal.