Could be those extreme folks are trying to protect the rest of us from some of these costs. This points out the most expensive part of malicious hacking -- the cost to society as a whole in terms of loss of privacy and limits on freedom. For example, I think ISPs would have been more sucessful in resisting Government access to their data if there were not so many compromised computers, etc. to overcome concerns about privacy. The more a free and open system is abused, the greater chance that someone will limit the freedom and openness to protect the innocent, even if they are innocent and stupid.
i think your right here people who do not under stand all about computers will give up every thing for what they think is security. if the goverment said we need to read ever ones e-mail and monitor chat rooms(which they all read do. at least here in the US.) for your security people would say yea why not its for our safety. In their minds they think well if the goverment reads the e-mail they could catch terrorists or somthing but when it comes down to it it is only a way of control because millions of e-mails are send ever day how could the read them all or even do a search for key words every day on that amount of data they really can't put that much money into it if it was only to catch a few people. people think it is about safety on the net but the gov knows it is about knowing what the public knows and thinks. If the goverment really wanted more safety on the net they would hire some programers not search e-mails and spy on people in chat rooms. well theirs my $.02 cents well maby thats more like $.04.