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ment in San Jose, a federal magistrate ordered the hacker held without bail pending his transport to Pittsburgh.

The government announced Iceman's arrest on September 11, 2007. The news hit Carders Market, sparking a flurry of activity. Achilous immediately deleted the entire database of posts and private messages, not knowing the feds already had it. “I think the SQL database almost had a heart attack when I did it, but it's done now. I think this is what Aphex would have wanted,” he wrote. “This forum is open for posting, so people can chat and figure out where to go from here. Just be very careful, specifically about following links. Try to keep the conspiracy theories to a minimum everyone, please.”

“Good luck, be safe.”

Silo jumped in under an alias to wrongly label his former rival a snitch, based on news reports that misunderstood Max's work for the FBI during his white-hat days. “It's sad to see a brilliant guy go,” he wrote. “He brought a lot to this board and the scene as a vendor and an administrator. A lot of guys made a lot of money from him.”

But “once a rat always a rat,” he wrote, with no trace of irony. “This whole board is spawned out of the fact that years ago the FBI and Aphex had a disagreement on whom he was snitching out. . . . Bottom line, he is the biggest hypocrite to ever grace the scene.”

Back at his desk in Pittsburgh, Mularski put on Master Splyntr's black hat to join the postgame analysis. The FBI agent knew full well that Iceman hadn't been an informant, but his alter ego would be expected to seize on the news that Max had once worked with the feds. “Oh just where do I even begin?” He gloated on DarkMarket, enjoying the moment. “Let's see . . . let's see . . . How about with this headline from SFGate .com? And I quote, ‘Ex-FBI snitch in S.F. indicted in hacking of financial institutions.’”

“Did anyone else notice anything about that headline? Ahh yeah, FBI Snitch. This is turning out to be just like Gollumfun and El. No wonder