A hacker-turned-security expert who apparently couldn't resist turning back to the dark side is getting ready to have a very big jail key turn behind him as he faces more than 40 years for a recent (alleged) crime spree.

It's not like 35-year-old Max Ray Butler, AKA Max Vision or Iceman, didn't walk this walk before. In 2001 he was sentenced to 18 months in prison for hacking into the very government computers he was supposed to protect, even while he was working as an FBI informant.

Assumed to have changed his ways when he got out of prison, he seemed to earn a solid reputation as a security researcher who really know what he was doing (for obvious reasons).

Whether he just couldn't handle to boredom of a proper job, missed the excitement and fame of the dark side, or just wanted to make money, Max' Vision was quickly corrected when he was busted selling thousands of stolen credit cards on a web site used by hackers and identity thieves to trade stolen information.

Ironically the person he tried to sell his stolen cards to was none other than - yes, you guessed it - a hacker turned FBI informant. Oh how the worm turns.

His alleged techniques were not new but show just how easy large scale identity theft can be for someone with the right knowledge. Butler is believed to have rented hotel rooms in various cities where he used a high powered antenna to sniff his way into unprotected wireless networks that were in his detection range.

Once inside these networks he was able to steal personal information and credit cards, which he then sold to other hackers either for cash, a share of the proceeds, or both. Proceeds refers to the way hackers and identity thieves turn your stolen information into cash. The last link in the chain will use your information to purchase goods, either online, or in stores, then sell those goods for cash.

The informant believed to have turned Butler in was doing just that - he was arrested after purchasing more than $13,000 of Coach handbags at Bloomingdales, and was alleged to have dozens of other stolen credit cards on him at the time. 

Those unprotected web sites Butler allegedly hacked into included Citibank and the Pentagon Federal Credit union. So we're back to square one - careless organizations who seem to have real trouble keeping our information to themselves.

Of course I could be wrong, and their world class security simply fell victim to an adversary who just out foxed them. But I doubt it.