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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.

9 of 193 comments (clear)

  1. Here's a simple idea to increase security by PhysicsGenius · · Score: 5, Funny
    The IT professionals among us are rightly concerned about software security implementations, especially from a well-known company in Washington State. The even more knowledgeable are concerned about the protocols themselves. This concern is 10 times greater when the network data is whizzing through the air for anyone to intercept. Luckily I've had an idea that may prove fruitful as a first line of defense against tactics such as war hacking and driving.

    Despite the catchy slogan, sometimes obscurity can provide a small measure of security. The first step in securing wireless networks should be making the transmissions uninterceptable by hackers. Therefore I would like to invoke the concept of "guided wavefronts". What you do is you provide a contained medium that is impervious to casual break-ins within which the signal can propagate.

    The scheme could prove bulky, so I propose that the contained medium should be made of some material that will conduct an electric charge quite well, such as metal. If this is done I suspect the guided wavefront containers could be made as small as 1/8"-1/4" in diameter. Also, there will be a certain amount of secondary leakage because of electromagnetic radiation produced by the contained signal, but making the container out of some kind of shielding matter would solve this issue.

    I haven't seen anything like this concept on the market but it seems like a good idea. How come nobody is working on it?

  2. Linked picture by Migrant+Programmer · · Score: 5, Funny

    What is that supposed to mean?

    "Breast viewing permitted from 1-5 pm only"
    "Caution, cleavage overhead"

    --
    Bitchslapped. Neat.
  3. How Times Change by johnalex · · Score: 5, Interesting

    During the Depression, hoboes used signs to signal where they could get a meal. Nowadays, geeks use signs to signal where we can get a decent 'Net connection. We're hungry, but we're informed.

    Who cares about eating as long as I get my /. fix.

    --
    JA
    http://www.johnalex.org/
  4. Oh great... by InnereNacht · · Score: 5, Funny

    Before you know it some poor geek is going to get beat down in urban Chicago by a gang because they think he's marking their "turf".

  5. What's next? by hprotagonist0 · · Score: 5, Funny

    Wardriving,
    Warwalking
    Warchalking...

    Warhopscotch
    Warsitting
    Wardrinking (If there's a glass with a coaster on top of it on the bar, there's an open WLAN)
    WarSegwaying
    Wargeocaching

    --
    "A witty saying proves nothing." --Voltaire
  6. 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.

  7. Heh, laugh by DG · · Score: 5, Interesting

    My job - before I retired - in the Canadian Army was armoured recce. We were the guys who went out in advance of the main troop body, looking for the bad guys so that the good guys with big guns could come kill them.

    One of our other jobs was to survey routes and determine their suitability for passing military traffic. We would prepare "route reports" that would indicate widths, overhead clearences, the strength of the road surface (tanks chew up roads pretty quickly) and how much weight bridges could carry (we were taught techniques for inspecting bridges and making guesses as to how much weight they would hold.)

    Certain types of "resources" would be noted on the reports, but they tended to be things like "gravel pit here" (for repairing roads torn up by tanks) or "harbour site here" (a good place to park vehicles off the route)

    If anybody were to know about "secret peacekeeper sign codes" it would be us - and I can state categorically that there is no such thing.

    There ARE some military signs around, but in North America they are temporary, not permenent. If you see a sign with a card suit on it, and an arrow (or sometimes a unit patch) that is a convoy route mark sign. It helps keep the poor non-recce types from getting lost while moving from one place to another, and they are removed once the convoy is complete.

    In Europe, you'll see a lot of "bridge classification" signs that will have a tank, and a number, and possibly a truck, and a number. The number is the number of tons the bridge will support, the tank represents "tracked vehicles" and the truck represents "wheeled vehicles"

    But these guys are absolute loons.

    Feel free to laugh.

    DG

    --
    Want to learn about race cars? Read my Book
  8. I am a bit annoied by this... by 00_NOP · · Score: 5, Interesting

    ...because I am one of those people trying to seriously encourage community wireless and if that activity is seen to be some sort of cracker plot it will be damaged.

    I want the local computer users near me to buy wireless cards and log into my node, they aren't going to buy the cards if they think somebody is going to use them to steal their data.

  9. don't even try this by msouth · · Score: 5, Funny

    I'm patenting it as you type.

    --
    Liberty uber alles.