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KINGPIN

privy to in the underground, bringing the exploits into the white-hat world like a defector crossing Checkpoint Charlie with a suitcase full of state secrets.

But after all his work making Carders Market the top crime forum in the English-speaking world, he couldn’t bring himself to just abandon it.

Max returned to his safe house. It was August, and the heat was back— the temperature topped 90 degrees outside, and higher in his studio. His CPU was threatening to burn itself alive. He turned on his fans, sat at his keyboard, and began the work of phasing out his Digits and Aphex identities.

He logged on to Carders Market and, as Digits, posted a note that he was shunting his dumps vending to Unauthorized, one of his admins. Then, as Aphex, he announced that he was retiring from carding and was selling Carders Market. He let the announcement sit for a few minutes and then took down the site. When he brought it back up, Achilous, one of his administrators in Canada, was in charge. Max created a new, generic handle for himself, “Admin,” to help Carders Market’s new kingpin during the transition.

He was still working on his exit strategy when an instant message popped up on his screen. It was from Silo, the Canadian carder who was always trying, and failing, to hack him. Max had tracked him down and identified him as Lloyd Liske in British Columbia. He suspected Liske was an informant.

The note was odd, a long sentence about newbies making dumb mistakes. But Silo had hidden a second message within it by strategically capitalizing nine of the letters.

They spelled out “MAX VISION.”

A guess, Max thought. Silo couldn’t possibly know anything.

It was just a guess.