I didn't mean that someone is not "to blame"; more just that a framing which even brings up who's "to blame" vastly overstates the "use" of punishing humans in defending oneself against this problem. Indeed, even if we catch "cyberterrorists" at a constant rate, this problem will only get worse: there will be more people; each person will have more and more programmable automation available to them, more and more easily; and people will grow more proficient with technology earlier and earlier in their lives (i.e. long before they've built up any sort of idea of ethics.)
Right now we have script-kiddy teenagers; Real Soon Now there won't be much reason to expect your average 5-year-old with a Youtube account, won't be able to slap together something like a ransomware worm from readily-available components, that will spread itself a billionfold. And, amongst 7 billion people and growing, there's going to be a lot of kids thinking that that sounds like a fun time.
The only thing to really stop this from being the world we live in, is making worms irrelevant.
(And what we do in the short term, about this case? Honestly, I haven't bothered to think about it. Too "identity politics.")
Right now we have script-kiddy teenagers; Real Soon Now there won't be much reason to expect your average 5-year-old with a Youtube account, won't be able to slap together something like a ransomware worm from readily-available components, that will spread itself a billionfold. And, amongst 7 billion people and growing, there's going to be a lot of kids thinking that that sounds like a fun time.
The only thing to really stop this from being the world we live in, is making worms irrelevant.
(And what we do in the short term, about this case? Honestly, I haven't bothered to think about it. Too "identity politics.")