This kind of logic makes me ill.

If we execute murderers, why don’t we execute the people who write computer worms? It would probably be a better investment.

Let’s do the math. What do we get out of executing a murderer? Deterrence. A high-end estimate is that each execution deters about 10 murders. (The highest estimate I’ve ever seen is 24 murders deterred per execution, but the closest thing to a consensus estimate in the econometric literature is about eight.) That’s 10 lives saved, with a value?again a high-end estimate?of about $10 million apiece. (The closet thing to a consensus estimate in the economics literature is about $7 million per life. I am rounding up.) So let’s say the benefit of executing a murderer is roughly 10 times $10 million, or $100 million?and that’s probably at the high end.

Compare that to the benefit of executing the author of a computer worm, virus, or Trojan. There seems to be no good name for such people, so I’ll make one up?at least until some reader sends in a better suggestion, I’ll call them “vermiscripters.” It’s estimated that vermiscripting and related activities cost the world about $50 billion a year. So if a single execution could deter just one-fifth of 1 percent of all vermiscripting for just one year, we’d gain the same $100-million benefit we earn by executing a killer. Anything over one-fifth of 1 percent, and any effects that last beyond the first year, are gravy.

So much for benefits. What about costs? The cost of an execution is one life?usually (one hopes) the life of the guilty, but occasionally the life of a wrongly convicted innocent. The question is: Which is worth more: the life of the average convicted murderer or the life of the average convicted vermiscripter?

Plausibly, the latter. Compared to murderers, vermiscripters might be easier to rehabilitate (the author of the Sasser worm is, by all reports, still a teenager) and probably have more skills that can be put to good use. (Offsetting this, though, is the prospect that those same skills can be put to further bad use.) Let’s bias things very strongly against the conclusion I’m driving at by valuing the average murderer’s life at zero and the average vermiscripter’s life at $100 million?the same value we earlier attributed to 10 lives.

Then to rate the vermiscripter’s execution as a better investment than the murderer’s, you’d have to expect it to deter at least $200 million worth of computerized vandalism?enough to cover the $100 million value of executing the murderer plus the $100 million value of the vermiscripter’s life. That’s twice our earlier estimate, but still just two-fifths of 1 percent of one year’s worth of worm and virus damage?and still a plausibly easy hurdle to clear.

Conclusion: On a pure cost-benefit basis, we should be quicker to execute a vermiscripter than a murderer.

By this same line of reasoning, there should be no doubt that terrorists deserve the death penalty. After all, don’t you know how expensive it is to build two skyscrapers??