You can certainly argue that Cryptolocker is immoral, but I don't see how you could say it isn't clever. It is entirely possible to do bad things in intelligent

You can certainly argue that Cryptolocker is immoral, but I don't see how you could say it isn't clever. It is entirely possible to do bad things in intelligent ways. Now, your parent is arguing that CL is actually a net good, even if it's doubtful that its author's motivations are altruistic. While I by no means endorse CL, I can certainly understand the argument. Most people will experience a hard drive failure at some point in their lives, surely. Could this malware ultimately save more data loss than it causes? Maybe. Although I doubt it. And even in cases where people have backups it will waste time. Regardless, I absolutely agree with you that it's immoral. But still clever.