5 ms·

While I agree that emotional torture is a terrible thing. Still, do you think eighteen years is really fair? Now you claim the guy has psychopathic tendencies.

by inoop 15y ago

While I agree that emotional torture is a terrible thing. Still, do you think eighteen years is really fair? Now you claim the guy has psychopathic tendencies. I won't argue for or against this because I'm not a psychologist. But even if he does, this can never be a reason to lock him up. In western society, people are punished for crimes they commit, not for having a certain psychological profile.

ars 15y ago
Personally I think it's too short. Intent matters a lot, this person did not just do criminal activity for his own benefit. No, he did criminal activity in order to make someone else as miserable as possible. This is a special level of heinous and deserves a much more severe sentence.
- _delirium 15y ago
  Seems to expose some different assumptions about the purpose of jail time. To me, it's purely protective: you put violent people in jail to physically incapacitate them until the threat of them causing more violence diminishes as they age. That's the reason most Scandinavian countries give sentences of under 10 years for most crimes, and under 20 years even for murder, because the risk of older people committing violent crimes is very low. So if your goal is to protect society from reoffense, the biggest win is to keep people locked up for their 20s; the 2nd-biggest is people in their 30s; and it gets increasingly pointless beyond that. In fact, giving supervised release instead of jailtime is often warranted, because keeping people tied to their communities / sources of employment is one of the best ways to prevent recidivism, while a few years in jail tends to turn people into hardened criminals (with fewer ties to the non-criminal world, and more ties to criminal gangs). In this case, 18 years seems pretty clearly excessive from a protective point of view; it's not even clear any jail time at all is warranted, since some sort of probation with supervision of internet use would likely suffice to prevent him from reoffending. My impression is that many people, especially in the U.S., have a notion of justice that's either more retributive or deterrent based, though. If retributive, that's a pure ethical disagreement. If deterrent, then we might have an empirical disagreement, about which lengths of sentences in fact deter crimes.
  - tptacek 15y ago
    By your logic here, there was little point in locking him up at all; he was already 45. Interestingly, if you read the prosecution's sentencing memo, you see that protection is the core reasoning behind the long sentencing recommendation: Barry Ardolf is a dangerous man. He uses his technical skills both to inflict harm and to avoid getting caught. Indeed, there is every reason to believe that the victims identified in this case are not his only victims. When Barry Ardolf is released from prison at the end of his term of commitment, he will do something like this again to someone else who has angered him, only this time he will be even more careful. The only way to prevent that is to incarcerate him for a very long time. I'm absolutely inclined to agree with them. The prosecution earlier notes that even in this case, Ardolf's letter to the judge expresses no remorse for attempting to frame his neighbor for child pornography at his place of work, claiming instead that he had been "victimized" by the neighbor. Ardolf sounds criminally insane to me. I'm glad he was locked up before he did something far worse.
    - Confusion 15y ago
      Solely looking at the protective aspect and ignoring an assessment of the chance of recidive, the logical conclusion is that a relatively low sentence is in place. However, I don't think the parent is advocating that only the protective aspect should be considered. After all, not even the Scandinavian countries do that.
      - tptacek 15y ago
        Everything after my first sentence is a later edit. I originally commented because the 20's and 30's rule of thumb he suggested didn't ring true to me. But when I read the sentencing memo, I was reminded of his point that protection is a key rational purpose of sentencing and moved to amend my comment.
  - euroclydon 15y ago
    Are you against punishment?
- mgkimsal 15y ago
  And... it wasn't a one-off prank. He did it repeatedly, with a long planned campaign. And wasn't afraid to do this to other neighbors as well. Though, with the reach of wifi, I'm not sure how many neighbors he could do - 2-3?
- ellyagg 15y ago
  I really hope the people defending this sentence realize that the average time served in the US for murder is around 4 years, and I hope that they then strenuously believe this is far too short. I've been "emotionally tortured" as much as these folks were (especially given that they had the full support of lawyer's law firm and hired forensics specialists from just about the very start, it appears) and I'd much rather be emotionally tortured than dead.
  - ars 15y ago
    4 years really? For murder? I would assume life in prison for murder. You don't mean manslaughter do you?
    - tptacek 15y ago
      The first page of Google results will suggest that for second degree murder, depending on the state, sentences bounce around between 10-20 years. Obviously, if you deliberately plan and execute the killing of your neighbor as an adult, you are probably never leaving prison; first degree sentences are extremely long, averaging more than twice the sentence handed down in this case.
    - sheffield 15y ago
      The time served might be much less then the sentence.
  - sliverstorm 15y ago
    I'd much rather be emotionally tortured than dead I guess you're in the minority? I'm right there with you though.
- Confusion 15y ago
  Too short? I'm flabbergasted. 18 years is an incredibly, incredibly long time, in which both you and the world change tremendously. Suppose that after 2 years someone has come to regret their actions and want to be a regular 'productive member of society'. Do we really want to put someone like that away for another 16 years? What good does it do? Does it make society safer? In terms of revenge, 2 years or 18 years hardly matters and neither is good enough. What would be enough: 25... 33... 40... Or does only death fit the crime? How about 6 years, with compulsory therapy?
  - sgk284 15y ago
    It is too short. This hacker tried to get his neighbor labeled as a sex offender and a terrorist, on top of trying to ruin his marriage, family, and get him fired. All of those things, especially the first two, would have screwed up the rest of that lawyer's life. The hacker tried to take this guy's life away. 18 years in prison pales in comparison to the damage he tried to do. If this hacker received a slap on the hand, it'd be no better than not punishing women for false accusations of rape. If you try to ruin someone's life on purpose, you deserve to have your life ruined. If the hacker finds new meaning to life while incarcerated, that's what parole hearings are for.
    - wisty 15y ago
      His neighbor had done the same. They told the police he'd kissed their 4-year-old son. That's a reason for a grudge (unless it was true ... but we don't really know)
      - lotharbot 15y ago
        > unless it was true According to the sentencing memo [0], he confessed to it (page 5, and included in the guilty plea on page 24). The 4 year old also said it happened (page 5). He also coached his child to give false testimony about it (page 26). I'd say we know it happened. [0] http://www.wired.com/images_blogs/threatlevel/2011/07/ardolffedssentencingmemo.pdf http://www.wired.com/images_blogs/threatlevel/2011/07/ardolf...
- vacri 15y ago
  You're saying that taxpayers should shoulder the burden of jailing this guy for 20+ years just to slake your desire for revenge? This event, while unpleasant, is not particularly heinous. He hasn't stolen their retirement funds, burned down their house, or killed their pets. Emotional damage is an issue and there should be some penance (not necessarily jail), but 'much more than 18' years? That's just blind frothing vengeance - and there's already enough wrong with the US penal system brought about by blind thirst for retribution. If you want some accounts of heinous things people do to each other, read a few accounts of what's happening in the Congo. Emotional harassment pales in comparison.
  - tptacek 15y ago
    Deliberately, carefully, and persistently attempting to wreck someone else's life in order to punish them for calling the cops after you accost their toddler is a serious crime. I don't know what genocide in Africa has to do with the justice system in Minnesota.
    - vacri 15y ago
      "a serious crime" by your definition requires imprisonment of "much more than 18 years"? As for genocide in Africa, I don't know why you ignored the rest of my points in an attempt to paint my position as one of irrelevance.
    - sliverstorm 15y ago
      This was in Minnesota? Heavens, all the more reason 18 years is a little crazy. The state is insolvent for chrissake!
    - wisty 15y ago
      Did he accost their toddler, or did the toddle go wandering into his house, and he carried him out? I don't know. But if they did lie about the "kissing a 4-year-old", the neighbors are as bad as him.
      - tptacek 15y ago
mynameishere 15y ago
Has nothing to do with "emotional torture". His victim could have been utterly destroyed for life by his actions, and not in an emotional way, but in a very real way.
- inoop 15y ago
  I find it very unlikely the harassing went on for months before the victim had to talk to his bosses about what was going on. I'm pretty sure I'd have to explain myself pretty much the same day, if not minute, if co-workers started receiving lewd emails from me. Once he did that, they hired some professionals and I imagine they figured out pretty quickly what was going on. So I highly doubt there was much time between the start of the harassment to the detection of the culprit. Once the found the 'problem', they could have just changed the encryption to WPA2, optionally punched the guy in the face, and be done with it. If the actions of the hacker were so utterly horrible that they could have destroyed the victim's life, why would they let him continue doing it for months? It appears they kept monitoring the network until they had enough evidence to put the guy in jail. I don't think getting your WiFi hacked will destroy your life, but eighteen years in jail will.
  - tptacek 15y ago
    I think this guy was trying to destroy his neighbor's life, and that his plan to do so was plausible. I think you are getting caught up in the "wifi" stuff.
  - sgk284 15y ago
    The hacker tried to get this lawyer labeled as a sex offender and a terrorist. That would, in a quite literal way, ruin the lawyer's life. Not everyone has the resources or technical know-how to understand and log what was happening. Attempting to ruin someone's life is what is on trial here, not hacking wifi. It wasn't the first time the hacker did something like this either.
URSpider94 15y ago
First off, this guy committed plenty of crimes. He threatened the life of the Vice President, he committed wire fraud, he distributed child pornography, he stole mail (a federal offense). Second, for those claiming that this guy got nailed to the wall because his victim was an attorney: maybe, but think about what his actions could have caused if the victims were less well situated? If the husband's employer hadn't believed him, and hadn't paid for a detective service, he would have been up a creek without a paddle when the Secret Service showed up at his house. This is terrorism, plain and simple -- making people feel unsafe where they live and work.
- redcap 15y ago
  So you just have to severly emotionally abuse someone and that's terrorism? I guess that means AQ don't have to set the bar so high. Yes this was a combination of criminal acts, but calling it terrorism is nothing short of hyperbole.
  - StrawberryFrog 15y ago
    > So you just have to severly emotionally abuse someone and that's terrorism? Well, if you severly emotionally abuse they, you know, feel terrified.
    - cglace 15y ago
      I guess homeland security should be called in every time someone feels terrified.
      - StrawberryFrog 15y ago
        That would be recursive.
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
- DougBTX 15y ago

by inoop 15y ago

ars 15y ago

Personally I think it's too short. Intent matters a lot, this person did not just do criminal activity for his own benefit. No, he did criminal activity in order to make someone else as miserable as possible. This is a special level of heinous and deserves a much more severe sentence.

_delirium 15y ago
Seems to expose some different assumptions about the purpose of jail time. To me, it's purely protective: you put violent people in jail to physically incapacitate them until the threat of them causing more violence diminishes as they age. That's the reason most Scandinavian countries give sentences of under 10 years for most crimes, and under 20 years even for murder, because the risk of older people committing violent crimes is very low. So if your goal is to protect society from reoffense, the biggest win is to keep people locked up for their 20s; the 2nd-biggest is people in their 30s; and it gets increasingly pointless beyond that. In fact, giving supervised release instead of jailtime is often warranted, because keeping people tied to their communities / sources of employment is one of the best ways to prevent recidivism, while a few years in jail tends to turn people into hardened criminals (with fewer ties to the non-criminal world, and more ties to criminal gangs). In this case, 18 years seems pretty clearly excessive from a protective point of view; it's not even clear any jail time at all is warranted, since some sort of probation with supervision of internet use would likely suffice to prevent him from reoffending. My impression is that many people, especially in the U.S., have a notion of justice that's either more retributive or deterrent based, though. If retributive, that's a pure ethical disagreement. If deterrent, then we might have an empirical disagreement, about which lengths of sentences in fact deter crimes.
- tptacek 15y ago
  By your logic here, there was little point in locking him up at all; he was already 45. Interestingly, if you read the prosecution's sentencing memo, you see that protection is the core reasoning behind the long sentencing recommendation: Barry Ardolf is a dangerous man. He uses his technical skills both to inflict harm and to avoid getting caught. Indeed, there is every reason to believe that the victims identified in this case are not his only victims. When Barry Ardolf is released from prison at the end of his term of commitment, he will do something like this again to someone else who has angered him, only this time he will be even more careful. The only way to prevent that is to incarcerate him for a very long time. I'm absolutely inclined to agree with them. The prosecution earlier notes that even in this case, Ardolf's letter to the judge expresses no remorse for attempting to frame his neighbor for child pornography at his place of work, claiming instead that he had been "victimized" by the neighbor. Ardolf sounds criminally insane to me. I'm glad he was locked up before he did something far worse.
  - Confusion 15y ago
    Solely looking at the protective aspect and ignoring an assessment of the chance of recidive, the logical conclusion is that a relatively low sentence is in place. However, I don't think the parent is advocating that only the protective aspect should be considered. After all, not even the Scandinavian countries do that.
    - tptacek 15y ago
      Everything after my first sentence is a later edit. I originally commented because the 20's and 30's rule of thumb he suggested didn't ring true to me. But when I read the sentencing memo, I was reminded of his point that protection is a key rational purpose of sentencing and moved to amend my comment.
- euroclydon 15y ago
  Are you against punishment?
mgkimsal 15y ago
And... it wasn't a one-off prank. He did it repeatedly, with a long planned campaign. And wasn't afraid to do this to other neighbors as well. Though, with the reach of wifi, I'm not sure how many neighbors he could do - 2-3?
ellyagg 15y ago
I really hope the people defending this sentence realize that the average time served in the US for murder is around 4 years, and I hope that they then strenuously believe this is far too short. I've been "emotionally tortured" as much as these folks were (especially given that they had the full support of lawyer's law firm and hired forensics specialists from just about the very start, it appears) and I'd much rather be emotionally tortured than dead.
- ars 15y ago
  4 years really? For murder? I would assume life in prison for murder. You don't mean manslaughter do you?
  - tptacek 15y ago
    The first page of Google results will suggest that for second degree murder, depending on the state, sentences bounce around between 10-20 years. Obviously, if you deliberately plan and execute the killing of your neighbor as an adult, you are probably never leaving prison; first degree sentences are extremely long, averaging more than twice the sentence handed down in this case.
  - sheffield 15y ago
    The time served might be much less then the sentence.
- sliverstorm 15y ago
  I'd much rather be emotionally tortured than dead I guess you're in the minority? I'm right there with you though.
Confusion 15y ago
Too short? I'm flabbergasted. 18 years is an incredibly, incredibly long time, in which both you and the world change tremendously. Suppose that after 2 years someone has come to regret their actions and want to be a regular 'productive member of society'. Do we really want to put someone like that away for another 16 years? What good does it do? Does it make society safer? In terms of revenge, 2 years or 18 years hardly matters and neither is good enough. What would be enough: 25... 33... 40... Or does only death fit the crime? How about 6 years, with compulsory therapy?
- sgk284 15y ago
  It is too short. This hacker tried to get his neighbor labeled as a sex offender and a terrorist, on top of trying to ruin his marriage, family, and get him fired. All of those things, especially the first two, would have screwed up the rest of that lawyer's life. The hacker tried to take this guy's life away. 18 years in prison pales in comparison to the damage he tried to do. If this hacker received a slap on the hand, it'd be no better than not punishing women for false accusations of rape. If you try to ruin someone's life on purpose, you deserve to have your life ruined. If the hacker finds new meaning to life while incarcerated, that's what parole hearings are for.
  - wisty 15y ago
    His neighbor had done the same. They told the police he'd kissed their 4-year-old son. That's a reason for a grudge (unless it was true ... but we don't really know)
    - lotharbot 15y ago
      > unless it was true According to the sentencing memo [0], he confessed to it (page 5, and included in the guilty plea on page 24). The 4 year old also said it happened (page 5). He also coached his child to give false testimony about it (page 26). I'd say we know it happened. [0] http://www.wired.com/images_blogs/threatlevel/2011/07/ardolffedssentencingmemo.pdf http://www.wired.com/images_blogs/threatlevel/2011/07/ardolf...
vacri 15y ago
You're saying that taxpayers should shoulder the burden of jailing this guy for 20+ years just to slake your desire for revenge? This event, while unpleasant, is not particularly heinous. He hasn't stolen their retirement funds, burned down their house, or killed their pets. Emotional damage is an issue and there should be some penance (not necessarily jail), but 'much more than 18' years? That's just blind frothing vengeance - and there's already enough wrong with the US penal system brought about by blind thirst for retribution. If you want some accounts of heinous things people do to each other, read a few accounts of what's happening in the Congo. Emotional harassment pales in comparison.
- tptacek 15y ago
  Deliberately, carefully, and persistently attempting to wreck someone else's life in order to punish them for calling the cops after you accost their toddler is a serious crime. I don't know what genocide in Africa has to do with the justice system in Minnesota.
  - vacri 15y ago
    "a serious crime" by your definition requires imprisonment of "much more than 18 years"? As for genocide in Africa, I don't know why you ignored the rest of my points in an attempt to paint my position as one of irrelevance.
  - sliverstorm 15y ago
    This was in Minnesota? Heavens, all the more reason 18 years is a little crazy. The state is insolvent for chrissake!
  - wisty 15y ago
    Did he accost their toddler, or did the toddle go wandering into his house, and he carried him out? I don't know. But if they did lie about the "kissing a 4-year-old", the neighbors are as bad as him.
    - tptacek 15y ago

mynameishere 15y ago

Has nothing to do with "emotional torture". His victim could have been utterly destroyed for life by his actions, and not in an emotional way, but in a very real way.

inoop 15y ago
I find it very unlikely the harassing went on for months before the victim had to talk to his bosses about what was going on. I'm pretty sure I'd have to explain myself pretty much the same day, if not minute, if co-workers started receiving lewd emails from me. Once he did that, they hired some professionals and I imagine they figured out pretty quickly what was going on. So I highly doubt there was much time between the start of the harassment to the detection of the culprit. Once the found the 'problem', they could have just changed the encryption to WPA2, optionally punched the guy in the face, and be done with it. If the actions of the hacker were so utterly horrible that they could have destroyed the victim's life, why would they let him continue doing it for months? It appears they kept monitoring the network until they had enough evidence to put the guy in jail. I don't think getting your WiFi hacked will destroy your life, but eighteen years in jail will.
- tptacek 15y ago
  I think this guy was trying to destroy his neighbor's life, and that his plan to do so was plausible. I think you are getting caught up in the "wifi" stuff.
- sgk284 15y ago
  The hacker tried to get this lawyer labeled as a sex offender and a terrorist. That would, in a quite literal way, ruin the lawyer's life. Not everyone has the resources or technical know-how to understand and log what was happening. Attempting to ruin someone's life is what is on trial here, not hacking wifi. It wasn't the first time the hacker did something like this either.

URSpider94 15y ago

First off, this guy committed plenty of crimes. He threatened the life of the Vice President, he committed wire fraud, he distributed child pornography, he stole mail (a federal offense). Second, for those claiming that this guy got nailed to the wall because his victim was an attorney: maybe, but think about what his actions could have caused if the victims were less well situated? If the husband's employer hadn't believed him, and hadn't paid for a detective service, he would have been up a creek without a paddle when the Secret Service showed up at his house. This is terrorism, plain and simple -- making people feel unsafe where they live and work.

redcap 15y ago
So you just have to severly emotionally abuse someone and that's terrorism? I guess that means AQ don't have to set the bar so high. Yes this was a combination of criminal acts, but calling it terrorism is nothing short of hyperbole.
- StrawberryFrog 15y ago
  > So you just have to severly emotionally abuse someone and that's terrorism? Well, if you severly emotionally abuse they, you know, feel terrified.
  - cglace 15y ago
    I guess homeland security should be called in every time someone feels terrified.
    - StrawberryFrog 15y ago
      That would be recursive.
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
DougBTX 15y ago