I agree with your first paragraph, but "a special place in hell"?
Are you questioning the meaning of this phrase or its applicability? If the former, then it is a reference to Dante's The Divine Comedy. If the latter, then in The Inferno, there is a special place reserved for thieves and betrayers. In a way, if you are a hacker and you blatantly rip-off the work of another member of the community, you are betraying said community. So the innermost circle of hell is reserved for you with Brutus, Cassius and Judus.
Wikipedia: "The traitors [who are suffering in the deepest circle of Hell - me] are distinguished from the "merely" fraudulent in that their acts involve betraying a special relationship of some kind. There are four concentric zones (or "rounds") of traitors, corresponding, in order of seriousness, to betrayal of family ties, betrayal of community ties, betrayal of guests, and betrayal of liege lords. (...) the traitors are frozen in a lake of ice known as Cocytus, with each group encased in ice to progressively greater depths."