Circa 2009-2010, 18-year-old-joshmn had unauthorized access to a large bank's systems, stole credit card information and used it without the authorization of said cardholder(s), and committed varying degrees of theft (mostly by swindle). Lonely-kid-with-computer-and-without-a-developed-frontal-lobe mistakes.

From the severity of the reactions you described and the way you talked about it (moment, mistake) I had thought it would be a lower murder or manslaughter charge. I think it's helpful for people to hear the never-ending punishment that a young person gets for nonviolent theft and recalibrate. Thank you for sharing.

That's a particularly bad offense for a software engineer. Wouldn't want to be in a meeting having to explain why I hired them if they mishandled data/access again.

Tell it to the guy's under-developed 18 year old frontal lobe.

Color me curious, how did they figure out that you were the one responsible? IP address?

I was a sloppy tactician.

It didn't help that my crime TV-loving mother urged me to "cooperate or they're going to throw the book at you!!!"

That didn't help.

Yeah. I'm sorry your parents didn't know better. I've seen a bunch of young people being given the horrible advice by their parents of talking to the police, which is a huge no-no in the United States.

Yeah, I agree. It's much easier to say now though. I think at the time, I just didn't want my mom to have to deal with any added stress so I went along with it. I accepted (and still accept) what I did. Was it in my best interest to talk? Not necessarily. Am I mad at my mom for it? No, she was just being a mom. A little naive, but still a mom. :)

I made a similar mistake of trusting adults in my life to know what was best for me when I was in highschool and was facing a computer-related misdemeanor. I really knew better, and I should have stuck to my guns. My high school principal invoked in loco parentis and pressured me to tell the officer everything, instead of doing the reasonable thing of calling my parents and letting them make a decision.

At least I was under 18 and the record was expunged. God, I hated school.

>crime TV-loving mother urged me to "cooperate or they're going to throw the book at you!!!"

Your mother definitely wasn't paying attention to those crime shows, because if she had, she would certainly realize that there is literally nothing to be gained by cooperating, and a hell of a lot to lose.