In a move that better resembles the strategies of Wyatt Earp and Pat Garrett than that of a tech company, Bill Gates has officially put a bounty on the heads of Internet outlaws. With its new Wild West-type initiative, Microsoft has allocated $5 million in huge cash payouts for anyone who can help bring down computer hackers who create devastating computer viruses.

Virus protection and network security have improved tremendously in recent years, but as technology advances so does the ingenuity of hackers and the viruses they create. Standard methods of tracking down these digital criminals have proved mildly effective at best and other high-tech tools have done little more in this endeavor than a pan with holes did for finding gold in a river. Rather than let the FBI and other law enforcement continue scuffling through the current search process in finding these nameless, faceless criminals, Microsoft has decided to inject a grassroots incentive into the process.

The first faces on Microsoft’s wanted poster are the creators of the original MSBlast and SoBig Internet viruses that struck the industry last year. Hundreds of thousands of Windows computers were infected, and both viruses caused serious threats to the operating system, which Microsoft had heralded as its most secure ever. The price on the head of each virus’ authors is $250,000, an unprecedented amount of money for a company to offer for intelligence leading to a virus-related conviction. Two men have already been arrested (though not due to this bounty-setting) for writing variations of MSBlast, known as Blaster, but the author of the original is still at large. (Microsoft also stresses that no one involved with creating the virus would be eligible for the reward.)

Another goal of the bounty is to make it more dangerous for hackers to reap the perceived rewards of writing viruses, thereby making the act less attractive. Many of those who write malicious code do so largely to gain infamy among their peers more than to wreak havoc. As a result, virus writers are compelled to tell others what they have done.

In this regard, hackers often rely on  “honor among thieves” to not turn each other in, but $250,000 is a very strong incentive to do otherwise. As said by Richard Smith, who helped the FBI corral the creator of the Melissa virus in 1999, “Some people would turn in their mother for that.”

Secondly, Microsoft and law officials hope that some hackers will take this as an opportunity. With an intimate knowledge of the hacker underworld and abundance of resources, there is the potential that this program will give birth to hacker “bounty hunters” that would act as undercover Internet cops.

Jared Wade is RM's associate editor.