Wi-Fi–Hacking Neighbor From Hell Sentenced to 18 Years
wired.com
wired.com
I'm sure the guy is a creepy douche, and what he did is clearly wrong, but these look like trumped up charges by a law firm that knows how to play ball. No-one will come out in defense of this man now that he has been publicly labeled a pedophile, even though I see no evidence of that in the article. If he really were into children, would they not have found a stash of pictures or videos when their confiscated his machine? Instead they found only the one he posted to myspace. I'm not sure how young the girl in the picture really was, but anyone looking to shock can easily get such material from say, 4chan.
So really what we have here is a cracked WEP key, some e-mail harassment, a picture of a young girl having sex, and a death-threat to Joe Biden. Because of this, and probably because he tried to fuck with a lawyer, his life is now essentially over and young children get to spend the rest of their youths without a father. Am I the only one who thinks this is a bit excessive?
Also, you're living in a pretty fucked up society when your neighbours call the cops because they saw you kissing your kid 'on the lips'. I'm pretty sure my entire family is a bunch of pedophiles by those standards.
edit: totally got the wording wrong from the article. The guy kissed their boy, not his own. Mea culpa, must learn to read.
Somebody who plans and executes psychological torture on his neighbor for months should spend the rest of his days under some kind of watch. Now, it's debatable whether prison or a mental health institution is the correct choice here… but that's besides the point. Fact is, he had some seriously psychopathic tendencies, and society is much better off with him off its streets.
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.
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.
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.
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.
You don't mean manslaughter do you?
I guess you're in the minority? I'm right there with you though.
How about 6 years, with compulsory therapy?
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.
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/ardolf...
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.
I don't know what genocide in Africa has to do with the justice system in Minnesota.
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.
Lucky for me, kids running around unsupervised is pretty normal here and nobody think anything of this. I thought it was a little weird because, as a kid, I was taught not to go into strangers houses, but apparently its not so strange here.
Of course, I didn't carry her out of my house or anything, I just put the cat out so she could play with it outside.
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.
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.
Well, if you severly emotionally abuse they, you know, feel terrified.
Oh my. The poor defenseless president. Besides, you're missing the point - he was impersonating a fictional character threatening the life of the Vice President.
"He distributed child pornography". Come on.
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.
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.
How about breaking into their house at night, tying them up in the basement, and starving them to death?
If I had to pick between someone using my WiFi access point to download child porn or being physically tortured to death, I would pick the WiFi thing. That doesn't mean it's OK to do what the guy in this article did, but it's not the worst thing that can happen to someone, either.
Psychopathic tendencies? He was obviously angry, but he probably felt justified in his anger. In his eyes, he was just getting a bit of his own back.
He was offered 2 years, after being caught red handed orchestrating a many-months-long criminal campaign against his neighbors in retaliation for a molestation charge he confessed to. He took it to trial instead. In the process, he violated the terms of his release from confinement. He coached family witnesses in writing to lie about the circumstances of his offense. He told the court directly that the actual victims in the case were attempting to frame him. He was given by the court an opportunity to write an "Acceptance of Responsibility" statement as a means of mitigating his sentence; in it, he told the sentencing judge that he was the victim.
As a result, the prosecution wrote:
At every turn, the defendant has chosen not to accept responsibility for his actions and to obstruct justice. This Court has had a firsthand opportunity to see defendant’s dangerousness, lack of remorse, and disregard for the law. A lengthy sentence is needed to prevent the defendant from engaging in any further harm.
Defendant is dangerous. Defendant is remorseless.
Ardolf's own actions in front of the court suggest that he's a psychopath. What judge is going to go easy on someone like that?
What gets me here is, if "wifi hacking" wasn't involved, this bind to the "Your Rights Online" neuroreceptors in HN reader brains and we wouldn't be arguing it. This is a crazy person who has thankfully been removed from public circulation. Forget about the wifi stuff. Total red herring.
This isn't a case where someone had the book thrown at them because they did magical computer stuff. This is a case where someone got the book thrown at them because they were a dangerous asshole that went around ruining people's lives and was good enough at it that he would not have been caught most of the time.
This clearly isn't his first offense, he has no remorse, does not accept responsibility, is a proven liar, and seems very likely to do all of this again. If I have any qualms, it's the fact that 239 months of prison is very expensive, but I'm not sure that there are any better solutions in a case like this. After all, I would expect him to target the judge and other court staff after something like this, for example, in addition to the people he was already trying to frame.
He sounds like a psychopath, but if he was labelled a paedophile in the neighbourhood based on the statement of a 4 year old (or did the parents witness the incident?), then it's understandable there was retaliation.
In a PDF linked from the article, it is stated that the mother had her back to Ardolf, and heard a "wet kiss."
Ardolf then admitted to the father of the child he kissed him on the lips.
My point is that accusing your new neighbour of being a paedophile on that basis could, if innocent of the charges, be a strong motivator for revenge.
Also I imagine the judge will have taken account of the accused's pattern of behaviour and modified the sentence to reflect the fact that he is clearly a menace to society.
But if he's impersonating someone while making the threat "as them" specifically to get them in trouble, is it really a threat to be taken seriously? It can't possibly indicate harmful intent, as he knows the person he's impersonating isn't going to do anything. That said, if he'd robbed a bank wearing a Nixon mask[1], it's still a robbery. But that's an action, while the first is expression of intent--intent that does not exist.
(IANAL, TINLA).
Legal details aside, my question was more about whether it's morally right to sentence someone to eighteen years for the crimes described in the article?
I think part of the reason is they wanted to send a message. Not the one you'd think: "Don't terrorize your neighbors" or "Don't threaten politicians". The message is "You'd better take the plea bargain. Or else." Prosecutors don't have time to take every case to trial, so they threaten everybody with 100 little charges that add up to 150 years in jail. Then they offer you a deal, where you plead guilt to some subset and spend enough years in jail to satisfy the government.
It's grossly unfair. Nobody knows how many innocent people are wasting away in prison because they didn't want to risk spending the rest of their lives there.
The sentence is up to the judge, within the limits set by the legislature. The prosecution can push for a plea bargain by quoting scary totals, but the judge decides whether the worst case comes about.
Of course, IANAL/TINLA etc.
Killer band and album names there.
That's not necessarily true, or rather the legislature often sets minimum sentences. If you're brought up on enough charges you can end up in jail for life with no discretion on the part of the judge.
Several families at least had their livelihoods directly undermined.
I can't speak to plea bargaining, it seems to be a largely American feature.
(IANAL, TINLA)
I'm not saying he should go free. But I am saying 18 years is incredibly harsh in light of the crime.
To me, this seems like harassment, worthy of a slap on the wrist. If he does it again, take away his computer privileges or something. But prison time? You have to be kidding me.
He was the author of an email threatening to kill the vice-president -- he is responsible for 'uttering' the words. In many jurisdictions that is the complete crime (strict liability).
Furthermore he aimed to pervert the course of justice by framing someone else.
Both these crimes are considered serious pretty much everywhere. Judges tend to look unflatteringly on perversion in particular.
(IANAL, TINLA).
Had his plan succeeded, the victim would be in prison for the rest of his life on the combination of kiddie porn and threatening the vice president. That's way beyond "harassment".
> The subject line of one e-mail read: “This is a terrorist threat! Take this seriously.” “I swear to God I’m going to kill you!,” part of the message to Biden said.
Not sure why you think he didn't threaten to kill. Seems he was found guilty.
For example, suppose I kill somebody. What will I be charged with?
Depending on the case, I might be up for murder, manslaughter or in some places "dangerous act leading to death". Each of these crimes has a different complexion and different punishments; the effect is that if I maliciously or carelessly hurt someone I could easily be hooked on one of them. Quite often the prosecution might charge me with all of them at once, then drop charges as the case unfolds.
However, for those crimes which make it to the "finish line", judges may be in a position to consider them separately or jointly. It varies wildly depending on jurisdiction. Supposing this was a jurisdiction where crimes must be sentenced in isolation, a high total is not impossible.
My gut feeling is that the judge has selected the higher end of potential jail terms because of the pattern of malice this individual has repeatedly displayed. One function of imprisonment is to remove the ability to cause more harm to society.
(IANAL, TINLA)
Posting child porn and death threats? Yeah, that's worth 18 years.
'Posting child porn' for example turns out to be 'posting a single picture of a pubescent girl having sex with two young boys'. Note that we have not seen the picture, so the girls' age can be anywhere between 10-17 (age range according to Wikipedia article on puberty). Note also that this picture was selected for shock value, and no other child pornography was reported found on the guys' computer.
The death threat was to a prominent politician who probably gets such emails on an hourly basis by cooks from all around the country.
So basically what you're saying is that eighteen years is appropriate punishment for being a 4chan troll?
The world is shades of grey, not the black and white you're demanding.
inoop was presenting an opinion based on the information in the main article and you stomped on him and effectively claimed that everything he's ever said is now suspect.
How many times has it happened that an article has used weasel words to paint an unflattering picture of someone, only for a more balanced view to come out later? inoop is asking people to look at the information that was presented rather than fire off a buzzword knee-jerk response.
If you have more information, then present it before judging, don't judge people on their opinions that may change with your secretly held information.
Page 8 describes the photo in detail. It's not a 17 year old, "barely a minor". It's a prepubescent girl and two prepubescent boys.
Anyway, the response is the same to both of you: I do not believe that either of you pore through every link in an article, reading all the way through before commenting. Particularly with court notes. No-one does. You're making a post-hoc defense.
If not reading the court notes linked in that article before commenting is worthy of having your credibility and history derided, then my bet is that pretty much every single commenter in this whole thread is guilty of this.
Also, lothar: your reference describes the picture of being of a prepubescent girl, which is different to the wired article which references a pubescent girl. From the context of inoop's comment, he's obviously going from the linked wired article and not the sub-linked court notes.
edit: sorry, swapped the last two paragraphs, 'if not...' was not meant to follow on from 'also...'
In short, the issue brought up was that the sentence seems excessive given that "child porn" could mean a picture of 17 year olds. Having done the research, it's clear that the picture was of much younger children, and that the length of the sentence was due to several factors beyond the "child porn" issue. So the ancestor post to this raised a valid question, but was ultimately wrong on the relevant facts.
I think every owner of a stash of pornographic material is guilty then.
Irregardless of whether you agree with the above argument, completely 'revising your opinion of me' for a single argument in a single case where you are conversing via a rather incomplete/miscommunication prone medium like this, seems rather like overreacting.
When I read someone suggesting that the state has sentenced someone abusively, then later find a comment where that same person says posting actual images of child pornography isn't a big deal --- or, as I found even further downthread, that physically molesting a child is something that warrants a stern conversation rather than police intervention --- I'm inclined to believe that person has very little to say about sentencing that I am going to find reasonable.
You are free to your own opinion about this case, and about 'inoop's comments.
You think wrong. There are two crucial differences between the average porn owner and the vindictive neighbor.
The relevant laws, 18 U.S.C. § 1466A, 2252A, and others[0], repeatedly use the word "knowingly". The vindictive neighbor did in fact knowingly possess and distribute a visual depiction of a minor engaging in sexual activity. A person who has a large stash of porn that happens to include a pic of a 17 year old that they don't know about is legally safe.
In particular, the law allows a person in possession of fewer than 3 pieces of material to make an "affirmative defense"[1] if, upon discovering it, they either take reasonable steps to destroy the material or immediately report its existence to law enforcement. So the average owner of a stash of porn, upon discovering kiddie pics in his stash, can avoid all liability and culpability merely by destroying it or turning it over to the cops. The vindictive neighbor did neither.
I would argue both of these legal points are also moral points -- knowing you possess child pornography, and knowingly keeping it, is a whole different offense than accidentally possessing it and then destroying it or turning it over to the cops when you realize the situation.
EDIT: as to the broader point as to whether the sentence is justified, you can read the government's entire argument[2]. It describes the photo in detail on page 8; the individuals depicted are prepubescent, not "almost legal". It also describes the rest of the case; note that the sentence is not merely a child porn sentence, but includes identity theft, threats to the VP, violation of his initial release conditions, lying under oath, coaching witnesses, etc. The government explains the length of sentence starting on page 27.
[0] http://www.missingkids.com/missingkids/servlet/PageServlet?L...
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affirmative_defense
[2] http://www.wired.com/images_blogs/threatlevel/2011/07/ardolf...
I imagine things work the same way all over the world. The prosecutor files every charge imaginable and then requests maximum time during the sentencing hearing. That's his job.
The defendant's lawyer then does his job and mitigates the damage.
Now, if the defendant is stupid enough to represent himself, pleads guilty to the charges, or doesn't put up much of a fight during sentencing ... well ... you end up with this.
Neither the judge nor the prosecutor have a responsibility to be nice. I have a feeling that they especially didn't have any desire to be nice considering what he did.
On top of all of that, kiddie porn is a big deal here ... I'd imagine the majority of the time is for that.
In this case, the defendant was even stupider. He plead guilty, withdrew his plea, lied during testimony, coached witnesses, and violated the conditions of his release. See pages 22-27 of http://www.wired.com/images_blogs/threatlevel/2011/07/ardolf...
As to your question, I guess it depends on the person. I wouldn't mind if it was a women for example. If it's a guy, I'd at least go have a chat with him. If I wasn't happy with the situation I'd ask him not to kiss my boy like that or tell my kid to avoid him. I'd certainly not assume he's a child molester right off the bat and call the cops.
If one of my neighbors saw something like this happen and let it slide, I'd be absolutely furious with them.
What a world we live in. Not that I disagree with you, but what a world.
> Barry Ardolf has demonstrated by his conduct that he is a dangerous man. When he became angry at his neighbors, he vented his anger in a bizarre and calculated campaign of terror against them.
The calculated and "with intent" part and showing no remorse make it weigh so heavy; he did all that calculated and with full intent of seeing his neighbor going to prison probably for life.
If a very, very good friend was in a similar situation and being accused of some very bad crimes, I like to think that I would give them the benefit of the doubt during the course of the investigation. Given condemning evidence, of course, that would change the nature of such a friendship in a negative manner.
It reminds me of the discussions of local bicycle-car accidents I read when I was reading through cycling forums looking for commuting tips years ago. You could put Pol Pot on a bicycle, and suddenly people would see things from his perspective.
Anyway, I urge people to consider that anxieties about being unfairly treated and fantasies about satisfying computer-based acts of retribution are pretty common and have NOTHING to do with this guy's very rare and very dangerous ability to commit such cruelty, not once on an impulse, not to one family, but to multiple victims over long periods of time. If he was a little less clever and/or had a little bit more physical bravery, he might have physically tortured and killed people instead of just trying to ruin their lives.
Huh? I never said anything to the contrary?
Going to jail for child porn and threats to kill the Vice President is a little different from being "ruined" professionally. Planting evidence (which was illegal for him to possess in the first place) and sending death threats to the Vice President is a little different from "spreading lies and rumors."
You might disagree, but the justice system in the U.S. is supposed to sentence people according to the severity of their offense and the danger they pose to other people, not facile logical equivalences between acts that have vastly different effects on their victims and vastly different costs for society.
I am sure some of these guys think they will just come out of jail and move out of the country. Bran new life right there.
It's better to use more secure technology, but most of the time WEP is ok.
Some people actually run wireless routers without encryption at all (and that was a blessing for me when I just moved into new place and was waiting for few days until cable company's technician showed up).
Where I live, open wifi will be saturated by your neighbours' bittorrents quickly (we pay by the GB).
8 Wireless Networks with no encryption at all,
15 WEP,
4 WPA
Of the WPA networks, only one isn't using PSK (coincidentally it belongs to a satellite apartment to the Vietnamese embassy).
I think we're still a ways away from seeing wireless routers configured in a secure fashion.
Honey trap?
http://www.kaisersblog.com/2008/07/hacking-thompson-speedtou...
Unless he used a custom mail client to spoof the From field of the email, in which case the email should be easily provably not sent via Yahoo Mail's servers.
Deleted comment
IANAP (I am not a participant) beyond the article. I don't know the full case details to warrant the punishment.
What do you suppose this means? Did his decide to check his personal email while on his neighbor's wifi?
that's why I wouldn't want to live in the US. the criminal system is out of control. if you "fuck up" a little bit or they just get the wrong guy there's a chance you will spend a big part of your life behind bars (or worse).
The guy is scum, and deserves to be locked away for a lot longer than the 3 years you think would be hard.
The part that weighs so heavy is the planning, the full intent and showing absolutely no remorse to the court. The hacking was just a means to an end. He got sentenced for willingly, cold bloodedly and with full intent trying to destroy his neighbor's life.
This would not have gone down any different in the EU.
And darn am I sick of fellow Europeans flinging poo towards the USA every chance they get and 99% of them haven't ever actually worked or lived there.
I dare to bet no EU country would have sentenced someone to 18 years for what he did.
So he's a hacker AND has psychic powers? Man oh man.
psy·chic
1. of or pertaining to the human soul or mind; mental
psy·cho·log·i·cal
2. pertaining to the mind or to mental phenomena as the subject matter of psychology.
via our friend dictionary.com
If sarcasm went by my head (and I think it may have, since you said irregardless), please ignore this post.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shocker_(film)
This thread was reminding me of it even before your electromagnetic remark...
> One of the manuals had Ardolf’s handwriting on it and
> another had the unique identifying ID for the
> Kostolniks’ router typed into it
* An annotated and later printed PDF.
* A home witten manual where notes and step-by-steps were put in a .doc (or similar) and printed out for later reference.
* A single piece of paper printed and used as a bookmark, or taped into the cover of the book.
And so on. Please at least try to think of alternatives which are more plausible than your random choice -- it comes off as less disingenuous.
"With Kostolnik’s permission, they installed a packet sniffer on his network to try and get to the bottom of the incidents."
They installed a packet logger but didn't bother changing the encryption to something stronger than WEP!? Crazy.
Edit: They likely already knew who was responsible since it had to be a neighbor but even if they didn't, the Secret Service had to show up investigating death threats to Biden for this log to be looked at.
Hind site is 20/20 and all that but I would likely have handled this differently.
They likely wanted to find the source of the intrusion and prosecute against it, not block it out completely. Changing to WPA2 w/ AES would have likely stopped the attacks, but it wouldn't have helped them find out who initiated them.