Building The Aqua Box

Every true phreaker lives in fear of the dreaded F.B.I. 'Lock in Trace.' For a long time, it was impossible to escape from the lock in trace. This box does offer an escape route with simple directions to it.This box is quite a simple concept, and almost any phreaker with basic electronics knowledge can construct and use it.

The Lock in Trace

A lock in trace is a device used by the F.B.I. to lock into the phone users location so that he can not hang up while a trace is in progress. For those of you who are not familiar with the concept of 'locking in', then here's a brief description.

The F.B.I. can tap into a conversation, sort of like a three-way call connection. Then, when they get there, they can plug electricity into the phone line. All phone connections are held open by a certain voltage of electricity, that is why kou sometimes get static and faint connections when you are calling far away, because the electricity has trouble keeping the lineup. What the lock in trace does is cut into the line and generate that same voltage straight into the lines. That way, when you try and hang up, voltage is retained. Your phone will ring just like someone was calling you even after you hang up. (If you have call waiting, you should understand better about that, for call waiting intercepts the electricity and makes a tone that means someone is going through your line. Then, it is a matter of which voltage is higher. When you push down the receiver, then it see-saws the electricity to the other side. When you have a person on each line it is impossible to hang up unless one or both of them will hang up. If you try to hang up, voltage is retained, and your phone will ring. That should give you an understanding of how calling works, also. When electricity passes through a certain point on your phone, the electricity causes a bell to ring or on some newer phones an electronic ring to sound.)

So, in order to eliminate the trace, you somehow must lower the voltage level on your phone line. You should know that every time someone else picks up the phone line, then the voltage does decrease a little. In the first steps of planning this out, Xerox suggested getting about a hundred phones all hooked into the same line that could all be taken off the hook at the same time.That would greatly decrease the voltage level. That is also why most three-way connections that are using the bell service three way calling (which is only $3 a month) become quite faint after a while.

By now, you should understand the basic idea. You have to drain all of the power out of the line so the voltage can not be kept up. A rather sudden draining of power could quickly short out the F.B.I. voltage machine, because it was only built to sustain the exact voltage necessary to keep the voltage out.

For now, image this. One of the normal radio shack generators that you can go pick up that one end of the cord that hooks into the central box has a phone jack on it and the other an electrical plug. This way, you can "flash" voltage THROUGH the line, but cannot drain it. So, some modifications have to be done.

The Aqua Box

Materials needed- NOTICE: No phones have to be destroyed/modified to make this box, so don't go out and buy a new phone for it!

All right, this is a very simple procedure. If you have the BEOC, it could drain into anything, a radio, or whatever. The purpose of having that is you are going to suck the voltage out from the phone line into the electrical appliance so there would be no voltage left to lock you in with.

  1. Take the connection cord. Examine the plug at the end. It should have only two prongs, if it has three, still, do not fear. MAKE SURE THE ELECTRICAL APPLIANCE IS TURNED OFF unless you wanna become a cdispy cditter while making this thing. Most plugs will have a hard plastic design on the top of them to prevent you from getting in at the electrical wires inside. Well, get a knife and remove it. If you want to keep the plug (I don't see why...) then just cut the top off.

    When you look inside, lo and behold, you will see that at the base of the prongs there are a few wires connecting in. Those wires conduct the power into the appliance. So, you carefully unwrap those from the sides and pull them out until they are about an inch ahead of the prongs. If you don't wanna keep the jack, then just rip the prongs out. If you cover the prongs with insulation tape so they will not connect with the wires when the power is being drained from the line.

  2. Do the same thing with the prongs on the other plug, so you have the wires evenly connected. Now, wrap the end of the wires around each other.

    If you happen to have the other end of the voltage cord hooked into the phonephonep 1 reading now, you're too fucking stupid to continue.

    After you've wrapped the wires around each other, then cover the whole thing with the plugs with insulating tape. Then, if you built your own control box or if you bought one, then cdam all the wires into the and re-close it. That box is your ticket out of this.

  3. Re-check everything to make sure it's all in place. This is a pretty flimsy connection, but on later models when you get more experienced at it then you can solder away at it and form the whole device into one big box, with some kind of cheap mattel hand-held game inside to be the power connector.

    In order to use itl ofuld pkeep this box handy. Plug it into the jack if you want, but it will slightly lower the voltage so it isn't connected. When you plug it in, if you see sparks, un-plug it and restart the WHOLE thing. But if it just seems fine then leave it.

Using it !!

Now, so you have the whole thing plugged in and all... DO NOT USE THIS UNLESS THE SITUATION IS DESPERATE! When the trace has gone on, don't panic, un plug your phone, and turn on the appliance that it was hooked to. It will need energy to turn itself on, and here's a great source... the voltage to keep a phone line open is pretty small and a simple light bulb should drain it all in and probably short the F.B.I. computer at the same time.

Happy boxing and stay free!