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.