What should we do with people that are proven guilty of developing a computer/network virus?
I have some ideas for punishment, but they are all cruel and unusual.
Cruel and Unusual seems appropriate.
Seriously, it should be monetary, after lengthy jail times. These people should not be able to make a good living until they’ve paid their literal debt to society. The University where I work, for instance, has spent hundreds of man-hours (this is ongoing) trying to get students patched against Blaster/Nachi, etc., and removing the infection. The monetary cost of just this small group of worms is enormous.
Instant Class A felony charges, in my book. Mandatory multi-year hard time upon conviction, without decrease of sentence for good behavior. Parole dependent upon ZERO use of computers or Internet. Possible permanent lifetime ban on Internet access with massive suspended sentence for reoffense.
I realize this would restrict their potential to earn and I want it that way. Evil little colonic extrusions that intentionally seek to harm the accumulated work of others need to find their own lives permanently damaged.
It’s not so cut and dry though, is it?
Many viruses and worms are not data destructive. Should the person that created NoInt be subject to the same punishment as the person who created Blaster?
Then there’s the aspect that a large number of virus “writers” (with the kits available now there’s often very little actual coding involved) are minors.
Whoops. I meant to clarify. Blaster isn’t data destructive, but its design is such that network traffic can become so high as to effectively stop most legitimate conversations from occurring. I could see this causing actual harm.
NoInt was pretty harmless. It could potentially render some floppy disks unbootable, but it never destroyed any documents or clogged any networks.
Explorer.Zip was one that was truly data destructive. Lots of Office documents lost their lives that day. I can’t recall if they ever located the designer of that worm.
Make 'em do Windows tech support. 
HA! That was one of my ideas. Or make them work on a key-punch maintaining Cobol programs written in 1968.
Infect them with a virus as destructive as the computer virus they spread. They spread one that causes a “small” spike of internet traffic, then infect them with a virus that causes a “small” spike in the amount of time they spend in the bathroom for the same duration as the computer virus caused the spike. This could be months. I still see my firewall getting hit by CodeRed. They create one that is destructive, infect them with a virus that is destructive. Let them feel how the computers they infect feel.
Just remember punishment must be cruel or it isn’t punishment, and if we did it more often it wouldn’t be unusual.
I would bust all their fingers on their left hand with a hammer. See, I told you they were cruel and unusual.
Why not both?
After all, there’s a majority of righthanded people.
I’d pick SPONTANEOUS COMBUSTION!
Public blinding.
For first time offenders, a single eye. ( 
)Maybe the corneas could even be salvaged, and donated to UNOS.
If someone manages to still write viruses after losing their eyes (or if they were blind to begin with), amputation of the hands. After that, the vocal chords.
I guarantee this will work as a deterrant, at least after the first one or two cases.
And I also predict that I’ve just killed this thread. Sorry. 
Break their freakin’ kneecaps. Shoot em out with a .45. I haven’t GOTTEN a virus yet, but I’m sick of getting 3 or 4 attachments a day cause some 13 year old jerkoff has too much free time on his hands. Broken elbows, in addition, for those that use that “But I only wanted to show Microsoft its security holes!” line.
Spend all his computer time getting popups, nothing but popups.
Ooh, too cruel.
Surgically remove their eyelids and force them to stare at Shirley MacLaine’s website twenty hours a day.
Super-glue headphones to their ears and play nothing but Whitney Houston singing “I Will Always Love You” at top volume.
But wait…I am too cruel.
Sentence them to work at Microsoft. I think that’d be more torturous to virus writers than any of the other ideas in this thread!