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Warchalking Visual Cues To Urban WLANs

Posted by chrisd on from the making-internet-cafes-obsolete dept.

elucidus writes "Matt Jones has put out a PDF and EPS outlining symbols to use in Warchalking the WLAN nodes of your community. Here's a pic. Ben Hammersly dubs them Hobo Runes." Brings to mind pictures of scruffy individuals around a fire with picturebooks, taking a pull from some ripple while reading slashdot.

4 of 193 comments (clear)

  1. Dude, spell my damn name right! :-) by BenHmm · · Score: 5, Insightful

    As Matt's server screams in the dark London night, you could spell my name right...HammerslEy

    Anyhow, the pic on Matt's site shows the rune to my wireless node. It's in Kensington, just round the corner from Imperial College. A T1. Help yourself.

  2. Theft of services? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Amazing. 48 comments as of this post and no one has yet commented on the obvious: that these signs are nothing more than telling people where they can steal free bandwidth.

    Isn't anybody worried about a "tragedy of the commons" effect here? One or two people chancing upon an open WiFi link is one thing, but a systematic method of exploiting bandwith amounts to a denial of service attack upon the poor network that's targeted.

    This is F***ing ridiculous. Go buy your OWN damn access and stop taking others' just because you can.

  3. Re:Warchalking? by disappear · · Score: 3, Insightful
    Why make a new word when "vandalism" already describes this activity?

    If it washes off when it rains, is it still vandalism?

    Last I checked, vandalism was damaging or destroying property. Spraypaint or marker might be considered vandalism because it's permanant, but chalk?

  4. The IBM fiasco by peterdaly · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Remember when IBM was hauled into court for marking up city sidewalks with the love/peace/linux thing?

    Now we'll see love/peace/linux/<802.11b info>.

    Free lov^M^M^MBandwidth for all!

    -Pete

    --
    Soccer Goal Plans