Uber-hacker Max Ray Vision entered a guilty plea on two charges of wire fraud in federal court yesterday.

Vision, 36, has been called a mild-mannered geek, a hacker’s hacker, a Dr. Jeckyll-Mr. Hyde type and the most interesting hacker ever. He was a black-hat hacker, a white-hat consultant and the owner and ruler of CardersMarket.com, an online forum where 6,000 people bought, sold and traded stolen personal and financial information.

When Secret Service agents arrested him in 2007, he held 1.8 million credit card and bank account numbers stored on computers in his San Francisco apartment. A million “dumps” of stolen information had been exchanged on his forum. Visa, American Express, MasterCard and Discover estimate they lost roughly $86.4 million in fraudulent purchases made on those stolen cards.

Vision served prison time from 1991 to 1995 for assault charges following an ugly breakup with a girlfriend. After his release, he honed the computer talents he’d displayed since high school, and used them as a $100 an hour security consultant for corporate clients and a number of federal agencies including the FBI.

The straight life lasted until 2001 when he was arrested again—this time for using those same skills to hack his clients’ sites for profit.

He was released in 2002, and again began his black hat activities, created CardersMarket. The apogee of his career was his 2006 forceful takeover and consolidation of four other major online forums.

If convicted on all charges, Vision could face as much as 60 years in federal prison.

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