Sanctions are indiscriminate  The problem with sanctions is that they are almost always indiscriminate; Iran’s sanctions today are an example where the international community’s concerns are entirely with the government, over nuclear weapons, not the people yet the result has been a doubling in the price of staple foodstuffs and rapidly rising unemployment. [1]  This will equally be the case here. While sanctioners will try to target the sanctions the fact is there is nothing to target with sanctions that would not affect everyday lives. Hackers are ordinary people so clearly sanctions will affect others like themselves. The most obvious reactions involve the internet but blocking access to internet services, or penalising ISP’s, or cutting off technology transfers, harm everyone else as much as hackers. Often this harm is in the form of simply making the internet less safe for people in that country because they will have to turn to pirated versions of software. IDC and Microsoft estimate the chances of being infected with malware when using pirated software at one in three [2] so it is no surprise that the Chinese government in October 2012 launched a campaign to have government and companies purchase legal software. [3]  [1] The Economist, ‘A red line and a reeling rial’, 6 October 2012,   [2] IDC, ‘White Paper: The Dangerous World of Counterfeit and Pirated Software’, Microsoft, March 2013,  p.3  [3] Xinhua, ‘Chinese gov’t says no to pirated software’, People’s Daily Online, 26 April 2013,