We also need to factor in accountability for parents. I know some parents of virus writers who know what their kids are doing and don't think there's any problem with it. They often feel they don't have any real-world impact. Young people who put viruses up on the World Wide Web don't perceive them as their responsibility. The virus writers are the bottom of the food chain.
Real hackers have a systems skill set.
Once you write a virus, it goes on without you. Some virus writers claim they're actually helping the problem by doing cutting-edge research as they study how to write the programs. These programs really are simple. I can understand how they would believe that this is stretching the limits of research, but the reality is, they're reinventing the wheel. Virus writing doesn't require a very high level of skill.