2) If you're talking about authors/writers (coders), that activity is not
against any law, ...
In some countries it is explicitly or implicitly illegal to write viruses.
From memory, I think Finnland has a law making creation of computer viruses
illegal and other countries (fairly sure Italy is one such) have laws making
simple possession of virus code illegal. In the latter, the act of writing
a virus immediately puts in breach of of the possession law so writing a
virus is, in fact, an act that results in a legal liability (it is a very
fine semantic distinction between that and "writing a virus is illegal").
... unless of course it can be proven coders are also
facilitators; those who willfully assist in the releasing of these things in
the wild.
Moving on to those who publicly post, but do not "actively spread" their
work, you quickly approach issues of contributory negligence and worse.
3) Particularly in the US, there are laws on the books at both the Federal
(the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act; the USA Patriot Act of 2001) and state
levels that address the release of malicious code and the impact that has on
government, financial institutions and on individuals. There are both
criminal and civil penalties associated with these laws, depending on
who/what is affected and the financial impacts.
Thanks for reminding me of the Patriot Act -- I seem to recall that there
are, in fact, clauses therein that effectively make virus writing a criminal
(terrorist) act because viruses and other forms of malware are defined as
"terrorist weapons" and creating, selling, disritbuting, etc weapons of
terror are treasonable under the Act, thus "writing a virus" may be enough
(in the US) to get you before a firing squad (if you're associated with the
military) or "on the table" for a lethal injection if a civilian (actually,
how are federal death sentences performed? By the method preferred in the
state executing (sorry!) the death sentence or by the same specific method
country-wide?).
4) Believe me, chain gangs no longer exist in Georgia
. But, we have a
lovely facility in Texas (Huntsville) that periodically has rooms available.
The turn-over there, every 10-12 years or so, is quite high, but ones
funeral expenses are picked up by the state :0.
5) All fun aside ( 4 was in jest ), laws aren't going to solve the problem.
They are reactive in nature.
You reckon a few punk ass teenagers getting gassed or scorched or injected
to death for their "undue inquisitiveness" might not somewhat quell the
"inquisitiveness" of others?
It may not be _the_ solution, but it's likely to help...
