Max Butler

{{Infobox criminal | name = Max Ray Vision | image = | image_size = | alt = | caption = | birth_name = Max Ray Butler | birth_date = {{birth date and age|1972|7|10}} | birth_place = Meridian, Idaho, U.S. | death_date = | death_place = | other_names = Iceman | alma_mater = Boise State University (attended) | occupation = Former computer security consultant, hacker | known_for = Stealing nearly 2 million credit card numbers, running up $86 million in fraudulent charges, operating CardersMarket | spouse = Kimi Winters | parents = | relatives = | criminal_charge = Wire fraud, unauthorized access to government computers, drone-smuggling ring (2018) | conviction_penalty = 2000: 18 months imprisonment<br>2007: 13 years imprisonment, 5 years supervised release, $27.5 million restitution | criminal_status = | conviction_status = Released on April 14, 2021 | conviction = 2000: Unauthorized access to Defense Department computers<br>2007: Two counts of wire fraud<br>2018: Drone-smuggling ring (charged) | motive = Financial gain, cybercrime | trial = | website = | conviction_status2 = | apprehended = 2007 | imprisoned = FCI Victorville Medium 2 (until April 14, 2021) }}

'''Max Ray Vision''', formerly known as '''Max Ray Butler''' and also by the alias '''Iceman''', is a former computer security consultant turned notorious hacker.<ref name="CNBC">{{cite web |title=Case File: Cybercrime: Max Butler |url=https://www.cnbc.com/id/35988327/ |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110612002405/http://www.cnbc.com/id/35988327/ |archive-date=12 June 2011 |accessdate=28 October 2010 |website=CNBC}}</ref>He was convicted of two counts of wire fraud for orchestrating a large-scale carding operation, stealing approximately 2 million credit card numbers and causing around $86 million in fraudulent transactions through illicit carding activities, as reported by cybercrime sources.<ref name="CNET">{{cite web |last=Mills |first=Elinor |title='Iceman' pleads guilty in credit card theft case |work=CNET |url=http://news.cnet.com/8301-1009_3-10275442-83.html |accessdate=25 September 2010 |publisher=CNET News}}</ref> His actions led to a landmark 13-year prison sentence, which was the longest ever imposed for hacking-related charges in the United States at the time.<ref>{{Cite news |title="Iceman" Computer Hacker Receives 13-Year Prison Sentence |url=https://archives.fbi.gov/archives/pittsburgh/press-releases/2010/pt021210b.htm |access-date=2017-09-28 |work=FBI |language=en-us}}</ref>

== Early life ==

Butler was born on July 10, 1972,<ref name="admits infil">{{cite web|last=Evans|first=Will|title=Berkeley Hacker Admits To Government Infiltration|url=http://www.dailycal.org/article/3328/berkeley_hacker_admits_to_government_infiltration_|work=The Daily Californian|accessdate=4 March 2011|date=27 September 2000}}</ref><ref name="Wired 2008">{{cite magazine|last=Poulsen|first=Kevin|title=One Hacker's Audacious Plan to Rule the Black Market in Stolen Credit Cards|url=https://www.wired.com/techbiz/people/magazine/17-01/ff_max_butler?currentPage=all|magazine=Wired|accessdate=4 March 2011|date=22 December 2008}}</ref><ref>''U.S. Public Records Index'' Vol 1 (Provo, UT: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc.), 2010.</ref> and grew up in Meridian, Idaho with a younger sibling; his parents divorced when he was 14.<ref name="Wired 2008"/> His father was a Vietnam War veteran and computer store owner who married a daughter of Ukrainian immigrants.<ref>{{cite book|last=Poulsen|first=Kevin|title=Kingpin: How One Hacker Took Over the Billion-Dollar Cybercrime Underground|year=2011|publisher=Crown Publishers|isbn=978-0-307-58868-5|page=2|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=SStemNQZV80C}}</ref> As a teenager, Max Butler became interested in bulletin board systems and hacking.<ref name="Wired 2008"/> After a parent reported a theft of chemicals from a lab room at Meridian High School, Butler pleaded guilty to malicious injury to property, first-degree burglary, and grand theft. Butler ultimately received probation for his crimes. He was sent to live with his father and he transferred to Bishop Kelly High School.<ref>Poulsen, pp. 4–5.</ref>

== First offense ==

Butler attended Boise State University for a year.<ref>{{cite web|title=Computer Hacker Masterminds|url=http://www.livedash.com/transcript/american_greed-%28computer_hacker_masterminds%29/5406/CNBC/Wednesday_May_05_2010/286140/|work=American Greed|publisher=CNBC|date=5 May 2010}}</ref> In 1991, Butler was convicted of assault during his first year of college.<ref name="Wired 2008"/> His appeal was unsuccessful on procedural grounds, as a judge ruled that Butler's defense attorney did not raise the issue in an earlier appeal. The Idaho State Penitentiary paroled Butler on 26 April 1995.<ref>Poulsen 2011, p. 15.</ref>

== Professional and personal life ==

Butler moved with his father near Seattle and worked in part-time technical support positions in various companies. He discovered IRC and frequently downloaded warez, or illegally downloaded software or media. After an Internet service provider in Littleton, Colorado traced Butler's uploads of warez to an unprotected FTP server—the uploads were consuming excessive bandwidth—to the CompuServe corporate offices in Bellevue, Washington, CompuServe fired Butler.<ref>Poulsen 2011, p. 16.</ref>

After moving to Half Moon Bay, California, he changed his last name to Vision and lived in a rented mansion "Hungry Manor" with a group of other computer enthusiasts.<ref>Poulsen 2011, pp. 14, 16.</ref> Butler became a system administrator at computer gaming start-up MPath Interactive.<ref>Poulsen 2011, p. 17.</ref> The Software Publishers Association filed a $300,000 lawsuit against Butler for engaging in unauthorized distribution of software from CompuServe's office and later settled the case for $3,500 and free computer consulting.

After marrying Kimi Winters, he moved to Berkeley, California, and worked as a freelance pentester and security consultant. During this time, he developed 'an online community resource called the "advanced reference archive of current heuristics for network intrusion detection systems," or arachNIDS.'<ref name="Intrusion Detection and Prevention">{{cite web|title=McGraw Hill – Intrusion Detection and Prevention|url=http://intrusion-detect.com/McGraw.Hill-Intrusion.Detectio/7210final/LiB0111.html|work=Intrusion Detection and Prevention|publisher=McGraw Hill/intrusion-detect.com|accessdate=16 March 2011|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110713050531/http://intrusion-detect.com/McGraw.Hill-Intrusion.Detectio/7210final/LiB0111.html|archive-date=13 July 2011|url-status=dead}}</ref>

== FBI investigation, guilty plea, and sentencing ==

In the spring of 1998, Butler installed a backdoor onto American federal government websites while trying to fix a security hole in the BIND server daemon. However, an investigator with the United States Air Force found Butler via pop-up notifications.<ref name="Kevin Poulsen">{{cite web | url=https://www.theregister.co.uk/2001/05/09/whitehat_hacker_made_fbi_patsy/ | title=Whitehat hacker made FBI patsy Sleep with dogs, wake with fleas.... | date=9 May 2001 | accessdate=11 December 2018 | author= Kevin Poulsen| website=The Register }}</ref> He hired attorney Jennifer Granick for legal representation after hearing Granick speak at DEF CON. On 25 September 2000, Butler pleaded guilty to gaining unauthorized access to Defense Department computers.<ref name="admits infil"/> Starting in May 2001, Butler served an 18-month federal prison sentence handed down by US District Judge James Ware.<ref name="Wired 2001">{{cite magazine|title=A 'White Hat' Goes to Jail|url=https://www.wired.com/politics/law/news/2001/05/44007|last=Delio|first=Michelle|magazine=Wired|accessdate=16 March 2011|date=22 May 2001}}</ref>

After his release from prison in 2003 on supervised release, Butler exploited Wi-Fi technology to commit cyberattacks anonymously along with Chris Aragon from San Francisco.<ref>Poulsen 2011, pp. 68–71.</ref> He advanced to programming malware, such as allowing the Bifrost Trojan horse to evade virus scanner programs and exploited the HTML Application feature of Internet Explorer to steal American Express credit card information.<ref>Poulsen 2011, pp. 80–84.</ref> Butler also targeted Citibank by using a Trojan horse towards a credit card identity thief and began distributing PINs to Aragon, who would have others withdraw the maximum daily amount of cash from ATMs until the compromised account was empty.<ref>Poulsen, pp. 101–104.</ref>

Arrested in 2007, Butler was accused of operating CardersMarket, a forum where cyber criminals bought and sold sensitive data such as credit card numbers. After pleading guilty to two counts of wire fraud, stealing nearly 2 million credit card numbers, which were used for $86 million in fraudulent purchases, Butler was sentenced to 13-years in prison, which was the longest sentence ever given for hacking charges in the United States of America at the time.<ref>{{Cite magazine|title=Record 13-Year Sentence for Hacker Max Vision|language=en-us|magazine=Wired|url=https://www.wired.com/2010/02/max-vision-sentencing/|access-date=2021-01-04|issn=1059-1028}}</ref> After prison, Butler will face 5 years of supervised release and is ordered to pay $27.5 million in restitution to his victims.<ref name=CNET /><ref name="TechWorld">{{cite web|last=McMillan|first=Robert|title=Hacker Iceman gets record 13 year sentence|url=http://news.techworld.com/security/3212722/hacker-iceman-gets-record-13-year-sentence/|accessdate=28 October 2010}}</ref>

== Aftermath ==

In 2018 Butler was charged with running a drone-smuggling ring from jail. The indictment states that in October 2014, he obtained an illicit cell phone and allegedly used it to obtain stolen debit card numbers from the internet, through which he stole money that he paid out to fellow inmates.<ref name="Daily Beast 2018"/>

Prosecutors say that a former cellmate named Jason Dane Tidwell stayed in touch with Butler via an encrypted messaging app and that, in the spring of 2016, Butler allegedly told Tidwell to buy a remotely piloted drone with some of the debit card scam proceeds to deliver contraband by airdrop. An inmate informed on the scheme, but guards never managed to find the contraband. One inmate, Phillip Tyler Hammons, confessed to retrieving airdrops, and he fingered Butler as the mastermind behind the plan. Butler claims that it was Hammons who was behind the whole scheme.<ref name="Daily Beast 2018">{{cite web|title=Feds Say Imprisoned Hacker Ran a Drone Smuggling Ring|url=https://www.thedailybeast.com/feds-say-imprisoned-hacker-ran-a-drone-smuggling-ring|last=Poulsen|first=Kevin|website=The Daily Beast |accessdate=2024-06-05|date=2018-12-01}}</ref>

Butler was released from FCI Victorville Medium 2 on 14 April 2021.

Butler's story was featured in an episode of the CNBC television program ''American Greed'' in 2010.<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20110612002405/http://www.cnbc.com/id/35988327/ American Greed: Cybercrime: Max Butler]. Cnbc.com (3 May 2010). Retrieved on 2013-09-27.</ref>

== References == {{Reflist}}

== Further reading ==

* Kevin Poulsen, ''Kingpin: How One Hacker Took Over the Billion-Dollar Cybercrime Underground'', 2011, publisher: Crown. {{ISBN|0-307-58868-8}} * Misha Glenny, ''DarkMarket: How Hackers Became the New Mafia'', 2012, publisher: Vintage. {{ISBN|0307476448}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Butler, Max}} Category:1972 births Category:Living people Category:Hackers Category:American cybercriminals Category:American people convicted of assault Category:American people of Ukrainian descent Category:Place of birth missing (living people) Category:Boise State University alumni Category:People convicted of cybercrime Category:People from San Mateo County, California Category:People from Meridian, Idaho Category:People with bipolar disorder Category:21st-century prisoners and detainees of the United States federal government Category:Carding (fraud) Category:Bishop Kelly High School alumni Category:Criminals from Berkeley, California