[ctdonath]

"If you hunt them down and physically punish them yourselves, you'll go to jail"

The U.S. Constitution actually has provisions for legally doing that. Lobby your congressmen to issue "letters of marque and reprisal", which Congress is authorized to provide precisely for businesses to engage in warlike behavior against pirates et al, which includes the modern form in "ransomware".

[hwstar]

That's a slippery slope which is bound to harm innocent parties. Large corporations would just love to get letters of marque and reprisal, let's hope that it is not authorized by Congress anytime soon.