a simple question from an obviously non informed computer user.......why is there not a serious penalty for someone who infects another persons computer???or for that matter, hacks anothers system!!!!!
You gotta prove intent. Back in the days of punch cards (Assembler, FORTRAN, COBOL, BASIC), a guy I met had taken down (erased) a whole partition of a university mainframe (their accounting and records array)--but he claimed stupidity rather than malice. In the absence of proof, he was suspended from the University for a year. It took them almost that long to straighten things out.