Anti-hacking laws will not deter our political, military or industrial adversaries from attempting to acquire proprietary information which is stored on our computer networks. This truism has most glaringly been demonstrated by China’s creation of a “hacking” college. (NY Times, China State TV Deletes Video Implying Hacking of Western Sites, 8/26/11)
For the sake of our military and economic security, we must rapidly seal all the cyber-holes. I believe this could be accomplished efficiently and inexpensively if non-destructive hacking was legalized. After the legalization of hacking, governments and businesses should offer financial incentives to encourage hackers to locate their cyber-holes. With this new-found information, network administrators would then be able to create a truly secure computer network.
Either we can use our legal system to encourage market forces to build a secure computer network, or we can continue to ostracize our hackers, thus perpetuating our porous computer networks and facilitating our enemies ability to steal data from our industrial, governmental and military computer networks.
Hayward Zwerling
8/26/2011