>>The point is, most folks have nobody to blame but themselves.
>
>This is exactly how I feel, if by exaclty I mean sortof. I could probably back up your point to death, but what about this anology:
>
>If I sent you a bomb in the mail that explodes when you open it, shuld I get off scot free because you were "dumb" enough to open your mail?
>
>Now what if this bomb didn't kill you, but ruined your stuff and cost you money, and you add an "e" in front of mail? Does that nolonger make it criminal? Its a tough call, imo.

Mike,

I believe that most country's laws would define "damages" to include things like lost wages, lost income, destroyed software, etc. and that the individual who caused such losses could be held responsible. Now, in this case you're more than likely going to find that most, but not all, of your court time will be in civil court, not criminal court. However, some countries, and I believe the US is in this group, have indeed legally defined some of what has happened here as criminal, and therefore the defendent would be liable criminally, but surely not to the point of capital punishment.

My guess is that the lawyers are already looking at who has the deep pockets here. I pity the ISPs who were inadvertantly involved here.

I'd also think that there are certain international laws that would come into play, as well as interstate laws.

This individual's life, as they perhaps thought they'd live it is entirely over at this point. I certainly would not want to trade a lifetime of being a public pariah and potentially having judgements exceeding 1 billion dollars for, what, one day's thrill of having that elusive sand called power. It so quickly runs through the hands, eh? *s*

The death penaly in this case would be the easy way..

Best,

DD