Trax could now call out--anywhere--as if he was calling from a point
halfway between his own phone and the disconnected number. If he
called a modem at Melbourne University, for instance, and the line was
being traced, his home phone number would not show up on the trace
records. No-one would be charged for the call because Trax's calls
were ghosts in the phone system.
Trax continued to refine his ability to manipulate both the telephone
and the exchange. He took his own telephone apart, piece by piece,
countless times, fiddling with the parts until he understood exactly
how it worked. Within months, he was able to do far more than just
make free phone calls. He could, for instance, make a line trace think
that he had come from a specific telephone number.
He and Mendax joked that if they called a `hot' site they would use
Trax's technique to send the line trace--and the bill--back to one
very special number. The one belonging to the AFP's Computer Crime
Unit in Melbourne.
All three IS hackers suspected the AFP was close on their heels.
Roving through the Canberra-based computer system belonging to the man
who essentially ran the Internet in Australia, Geoff Huston, they
watched the combined efforts of police and the Australian Academic and
Research Network (AARNET) to trace them.
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