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Wow! Great.
So now we have *yet another way* to spy/be spied upon!
Van Ech Phreaking (original paper, SW source for Echbox, simplified description ) is bad enough, now we have to watch for shotgun mikes!

Hook this up with Wardriving and Let The Games Begin.

Although, apparently, this has a *LONG* way to go before a full password capture is feasible using the technique.

(By the way there is a wireless security presentation here that is quite good (had info on some stuff I hadn't heard about. For example Warchalking)

aah, this might bring a whole new wave of people to warchalking

Warchalking already exists... AMD's just a bit late attaching their logo to it.

So the guys over at WarChalking aren't wasting their time after all? It's a good thing I don't give out my email address or order things by credit card except with my cordless non-Interweb-emabled phone. Ah goody, Microsoft really does care about my computer's security, because they just sent me another patch as an attachment to one of their spiffy emails. Excuse me while I go run the patch... stupid antivirus warnings...

*snicker* Since when did security hold any technology back?

"There's a sucker born every minute." In the grander scheme of things, that's so true.

It's great that wireless Internet is moving in this direction, even if it's going to take some time since wireless ISPs aren't interconnected yet. But I'm sure as with many wireless phone companies, providers will charge fifty cents a nanosecond to roam on another provider's network. If your wireless network doesn't reach you, just keep a look out for mysterious symbols on the sidewalk.

T-Mobile: These guys actually have a decent priced unlimited plan at $29.00 a month. BUT, it looks like their speeds are limited to around 56k. I'd really like more speed, but I suppose that's the trade off for the cheap price.

I've looked at T-Mobile myself. IIRC, that $30/month isn't an all-you-can-eat plan. And the additional bandwidth charges are pretty steep. It might be affordable for checking your email on the road, provided you configure your client not to download everything every time you check.

The right keyword for Googling cellular data service is GPRS. I personally consider GPRS to be the only cellular data technology worth paying attention to. Though maybe I'm just prejudiced against CDMA-based data services because U.S.-only wireless standards are a major pain.

If you must have a lot of bandwidth on the road, you should consider signing up with a Wireless Hotspot service. Then all you have to do is schlep your way to the nears Borders or Starbucks (neither is in the Gobi Desert yet, but I think they're working on it), plug in your WiFi card, and surf. Or you could just get the WiFi card and look for Free Hotspots or other open networks.

I propose that we don't leave a task this important to the powers that be- we need to put together a set of simple symbols that can be marked with chalk or spray paint, in the spirit of (but a bit more subversive than) War chalking.

It'd be best not to let the cam-chalking and warchalking symbols overlap, otherwise you would have confusion. The government would have hours of video tape of people walking around with laptops trying to find a WiFi signal.

http://www.karchner.com/update/archives/000192.h tm l

So, how long before someone warchalks a destroyer?

here

Warchalking PDF FAQ and check out This site

you know, here in san francisco, the attitude takes it even further into the public's hands. i am sitting at a (non-Starbucks) cafe at california and divisidero, and my PCMCIA 802.11b card sniffs not only the free WAP at the cafe proper, but also the chinese restaurant across the street, and the dude around the corner who not only makes his WAP available, but LET'S PEOPLE KNOW. And let's other people know. Pretty soon those people start talking,and even communicating in other ways.

The internet itself has been described as the great equalizer. Grassroots wireless networking has the potential to put one more bullet into the chest of inequality, and then the internet may begin to continue it's evolution from shitstream teevee/radio corporate fuckfest, to the greatest tool mankind has ever made. ...Then we throw out the dixie cup...

Here's Google's cache of http://www.warchalking.org.

--
The Grid Report

You may have been reading articles written by the clue-lacking. The NYT piece is good. BusinessWeek isn't bad either.

Meanwhile, I totally agree about the name. It is misleading: but it, and the use of chalk for that matter, were just chosen because, well, they sound cool.

As for why an icon and not a flyer - well, because iconography is inherently more understandable. Why have roadsigns that are symbols and not words? Because they're easy to understand, and to see.

Have a look at Warchalking.org - Matt Jone's site, for better examples.

The BBC had a good story last week about warchalking which is a grass-roots effort to track down wireless networks so anyone can use them. Unfortunately the warchalking web site is no longer being updated because the owner, Matt Jones, wants to sell the domain and hand the project over to someone else.