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19

Carders Market

Try as he might, Max couldn't get situated on any of the new forums sprouting in Shadowcrew's ruins. They were all corrupt, run by dumps vendors hostile to outside competition. In a way, it was a blessing. He could never really trust any of the sites; he knew all too well that the scene was rank with cops and informants.

He finally made up his mind that if he was going to vend, the only sensible venue would be a site he personally controlled. Still thinking of himself as Robin Hood, he came up with the perfect name for his own forum: Sherwood Forest.

Chris approved of the plan—he liked the idea of vending his counterfeit credit cards and driver's licenses in a safe environment—but hated the name. As an exercise in branding, "Sherwood Forest" wasn't going to cut it for a criminal marketplace. The partners went back to the drawing board, and in June 2005 Max used a fake name and bogus address in Anaheim to register Cardersmarket.com.

It was a critical time for Max: He was near the end of his federal supervised release, and if he could make it until midnight, October 10, 2005, he would be a free agent, no longer obliged to play the role of an underemployed computer consultant for the benefit of his probation officer. It should have been easy enough to survive a few more months.