David Thomas' entree to online crime came through the conventional world of offline crime. He was born to a Texas oil family, but this circumstance did little to grease his way through life. His parents divorced when he was four, and his father, a geologist and oil prospector, walked out of his life and died destitute in 1987, leaving Thomas with nothing more than a small oil royalty on a barren tract of Texas land.

Left to his own devices, Thomas gravitated to trouble. At 14, he stole a car -- his first felony; by 30 he'd been arrested several times for check fraud, forgery and burglary.

At Wired.

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