A Hacker's Audacious Plan To Rule the Underground

An anonymous reader writes "Wired has the inside story of Max Butler, a former white hat hacker who joined the underground following a jail stint for hacking the Pentagon. His most ambitious hack was a hostile takeover of the major underground carding boards where stolen credit card and identity data are bought and sold. The attack made his own site, CardersMarket, the largest crime forum in the world, with 6,000 users. But it also made the feds determined to catch him, since one of the sites he hacked, DarkMarket.ws, was secretly a sting operation run by the FBI."

Comments

My Ambition

[Anthony_Cargile]

Yeah, many years ago (in my teens) I had the ambition to be "the next bill gates", and now as I write small to medium websites and private applications from my couch, covered in empty red bull cans and small food bags, I think I managed pretty well!

</humor>

Re:My Ambition

[idontgno]

buggy slashcode

+1 Redundant

The article leaves out a key piece

[Anonymous Coward]

Posting anonymously for obvious reasons.

I went to school with Max Butler. He's driven by constant challenges. I knew Max as a friend and as such witnessed the same vitriol and hatred he put up with from others who did not understand him. Teachers often openly mocked him, especially in computer science courses.

His escape from it all came from hacking. He noticed he had a particular knack for it. He'd get really engrossed, and it became sort of a downward spiral from there. If you know anyone like him, please do not ostracize him in his forming years. Imagine if he had been a solid, contributing member of society like timecop, or the millions of other good natured people that run trolling organizations that specialize in making fools out of idiots like yourself.

Re:The article leaves out a key piece

[digitalhermit]

I went to school with Anonymous Coward. He's driven by shame. I knew AC as a friend and witnessed the same vitriol and hatred he put up with from others who did not understand him. Users often openly mocked him, especially after he posted comments about Apple Computer.

His escape came from posting. He noticed he had a particular knack for it. He'd sometimes post a thousand times a day to Slashdot (just check the logs and you can verify this for yourself). If you know others like him (such as Anonymous Howard, Eponymous Dotard, Androgynous Blowhard), please do not euthanize him in his cromulent fears.

Re:Article?

[momerath2003]

Wouldn't decimating them mean having to leave 90% of the logins?

Re:He was used

[Amazing Quantum Man]

Isn't hackorX really Max's long-lost brother Rex Hackor, in disguise?

Re:Article?

[multisync]

"Once inside, he sucked out their content, including the logins, passwords, and email addresses of everyone who bought and sold through the sites. And then he decimated them, wiping out the databases with the ease of an arsonist flicking a match."

This seems to be written more like a work of fiction than an account of the hack.

True, but I'll bet there were lots of cool graphics swirling around his head while he was doing it!

Re:Rather interesting line at end of article...

[Schemat1c]

The USS cracked

Sounds like the worst name ever for a ship.

Re:mod parent troll

[be new here]

you all must be new here.

Please stop bringing me into this!

Re:CHECK MATE

[rk]

since zero is a percent.

Please, let's leave the value of my 401k out of this.

Re:White hat?

[TheoMurpse]

Don't forget "green hat." Those are hackers who shut down computers across the globe in order to reduce the world's carbon footprint.