This statement and others like it here seem to assume that the hacker has not been directly affected by the infected devices.
For example, maybe this person had a wife dying of cancer while Mirai destroyed his life's work, so in the same period he lost his wife and he lost his work.
Or, maybe he spent a lot of money trying to launch a new product through channels that were destroyed during one of the attacks, and unable to get his money back, had to close the venture.
Maybe he had to sleep in a data center for several months during the holidays and concluded the only reason he was doing this is because consumers and manufacturers aren't concerned with the damage they are doing, so he is going to make them become concerned about the damage they are doing.
The point is that we have no idea if this person has been harmed, and whether they have any other legitimate means of being made whole from harm done, as well as be able to protect themselves from future harm.
Clearly, the proposed solutions coming from industry "experts" is likely to make things worse, as the only other activities to "fight" Mirai seem to be to support legislation as a solution to a technical problem, and I'm really not clear on when this has ever worked, especially in a system that everything on the planet can connect to.
For example, maybe this person had a wife dying of cancer while Mirai destroyed his life's work, so in the same period he lost his wife and he lost his work.
Or, maybe he spent a lot of money trying to launch a new product through channels that were destroyed during one of the attacks, and unable to get his money back, had to close the venture.
Maybe he had to sleep in a data center for several months during the holidays and concluded the only reason he was doing this is because consumers and manufacturers aren't concerned with the damage they are doing, so he is going to make them become concerned about the damage they are doing.
The point is that we have no idea if this person has been harmed, and whether they have any other legitimate means of being made whole from harm done, as well as be able to protect themselves from future harm.
Clearly, the proposed solutions coming from industry "experts" is likely to make things worse, as the only other activities to "fight" Mirai seem to be to support legislation as a solution to a technical problem, and I'm really not clear on when this has ever worked, especially in a system that everything on the planet can connect to.