While we can dream of a future where cybercrime is legal and we rely on our code and math to protect us, completely legalizing it today is not our best option.

While we can dream of a future where cybercrime is legal and we rely on our code and math to protect us, completely legalizing it today is not our best option. Nevertheless, we should consider moving in that direction. I like that this article looks at the distributed, societal-level effects that derive from law. But I find the "should consider moving in that direction" part to be perplexing. One straw-man take against that: what about defense in depth? Can we strongly incentivize secure software and software-based appliances and still have legal deterrents against cybercrime perpetrators?