Trax's illness degenerated into full-fledged agoraphobia, a fear of
open spaces. When he rang the police in late October 1991--just days
before the AFP raid--his condition had deteriorated to the point where
he could not comfortably leave his own house.
Initially he rang the state police to report a death threat made
against him by another phreaker. Somewhere in the conversation, he
began to talk about his own phreaking and hacking. He hadn't intended
to turn himself in but, well, the more he talked, the more he had to
say. So many things had been weighing on his mind. He knew that Prime
Suspect had probably been traced from NorTel as a result of Mendax's
own near miss in that system. And Prime Suspect and Mendax had been so
active, breaking into so many systems, it was almost as if they wanted
to be caught.
Then there was Prime Suspect's plan to write a destructive worm, which
would wipe systems en route. It wasn't really a plan per se, more just
an idea he had toyed with on the phone. Nonetheless, it had scared
Trax. He began to think all three IS hackers were getting in too deep
and he wanted out.
He tried to stop phreaking, even going so far as to ask Telecom to
change his telephone number to a new exchange which he knew would not
allow him to make untraceable calls.
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