They're conceptually related to reporting exploits in public. We report exploits in public because we operate under the assumption that if the "good guys" have figured out an attack vector, the "bad guys" have too.

We honeypot criminals-in-the-making under the assumption that if the "good guys" can get the person to prepare for violence resulting in death, the "bad guys" can too. Whether the honeypot is too sweet or unreasonably sticky is an excellent matter for discussion in a court of law (but it's probably worth noting, as a pulse check, that more than 99.9% of the population isn't even in the market for C-4 of any kind, let alone for terroristic ends).

Hacking a computer system is wholly different from convincing someone to carry out an attack. You are prescribing trying to goad the mentally ill into violence instead of providing them medical treatment. On a smaller scale, try subjecting your friends or personal relations to loyalty/character tests and see where that ends up.

To make it more clear: trying to hack a computer system does not change that system. Trying to convince a person to carry out an attack (via social pressure, provision of materiel, planning, etc.) definitely changes that person.

I mean really, the more I think about this the more ridiculous it gets. Imagine coming up with an online persona to try to seduce your significant other with all your personal knowledge about them, as a form of penetration testing. We rightly view people who do this as being very controlling & insecure - not normal or justifiable behavior at all, and it materially changes your relationship with them regardless of how it turns out!

It of course matters how far they went in interacting with him, but if all it takes for someone to try to bomb a building is another person online going, "do it, I'll sell you a bomb", they should probably not be free and are clearly a danger. If this is mainly due to mental illness, that can and should be considered during the trial as far as punishment/rehabilitation goes, but has no bearing on the fact that they were willing to bomb a building.

This is a very unrealistic idea of how these cases usually play out. I linked this article elsewhere in the thread: https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/peteraldhous/fbi-entrap...

I'm afraid I don't see the relationship between the notion of catfishing one's significant other and setting up a honeypot for somebody seeking weapons to harm other people. The arrested individual wasn't married to the FBI agent, and I don't think anybody reasonable maintains a similar trust relationship with either strangers or government agents to the one that they maintain with their significant others. Can you clarify your meaning?

The people generally aren't seeking weapons to harm other people, or at most have very angry thoughts about some target. The feds do their research. They gain their trust. They play on their fears & desires. They suggest the crime.

It appears juries have concluded that people that suggestible cannot be trusted in open society (based on the Buzzfeed article you linked to).

No, the juries decided whether the people violated the laws as written. Their decisions have no bearing on the validity of those laws as such.