I don't think a stronger sentence would have deterred him. I doubt he sat down and thought "If I get caught, I'll only get 3 1/2 years, which isn't too bad. Now, if I would get 10 years, that's another story..." I doubt he even knew the specific penalties for doing this. It seems to me he assumed he'd never get caught.

I think others reading this article will be deterred by the thought of losing 3 1/2 years of their life, and having their life after prison ruined in many ways. For example, try to explain a 3 1/2 year gap in your employment history during a job interview. And for the ones who aren't, I don't think a 10 year sentence would somehow deter them.

I don't think this guy is likely to commit another such crime after his release. I doubt he figures that 3 1/2 years in jail and putting his life back together isn't that big a deal and planting another logic bomb feels so good that it's worth it to do it again.

The only other motivation for punishing a crime is vengeance, an emotional feeling of hurting someone who tried to hurt us. That seems a poor motivation for taking away even more of someone's life.

He did something malicious that could have caused a lot of problems. He needs to be punished. But the punishment seems way out of proportion to what's needed to reduce crime.

If malicious software is a bad thing -- and it is -- then let's punish everyone who does it. Starting with Sony when they put a rootkit in CDs. But of course, Sony are a big corporation, so that makes it OK.

I otherwise fully agree with your sentiments.