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KINGPIN

the paper on more than two million doorsteps from coast to coast. There, on the front page of the business section, was the whole sordid tale of Iceman’s annexation of the carding sites.

By letting his ego lead him into a public battle with David Thomas, Max had gotten Iceman into the largest-circulation daily in America.

“The Secret Service and FBI declined to comment on Iceman or the takeovers,” the article read. “Even so, the activities of this mystery figure illustrate the rising threat that cybercrime’s relentless expansion—enabled in large part by the existence of forums—poses for us all.”

The story wasn’t a surprise; the reporters had approached Iceman for comment, and Max had e-mailed a long one, lobbing his Craigslist defense. His views didn’t make it into the article, and the story only made Max more defiant. He added a quote from the piece to the top of the Carders Market login page: “It’s like he created the Wal-Mart of the underground.”

Max showed the article to Charity. “I seem to have created quite a stir.”

Chris was apoplectic when he learned that Max had corresponded with the journalists. He’d watched as Max burned hours squabbling with Thomas. Now his partner was giving press interviews?
“You’ve lost your fucking mind,” he said.

Max was swamped. Vouch requests were pouring into Carders Market in a torrent. The USA Today article seemed to bring out every street-level hood hoping to break into computer fraud. The site picked up over three hundred new members overnight. Two weeks later, they were still coming in.

He offloaded as much of the work as he could to his admins. Max had other things to worry about now. His spear-phishing attack against the financial institutions had been wildly successful, but getting past the banks’ firewalls had turned out to be the easy part. Bank of America and Capital One, in particular, were huge institutions, and Max was lost in their vast