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Is it a morally dubious illegal activity, or simply taking advantage of excess bandwidth? Warchalking, or making chalk marks on walls or pavements to indicate a wireless access point, has caused a media buzz over the past 12 months. Nick Langley asks whether warchalking has lived up to the hype
There are parts of the world where trainspotters and planespotters are at risk of arrest because the locals cannot understand such quintessentially British preoccupations. Warchalking breaches a new frontier in such hobbies, in that even the British, by and large, do not understand it. Its practitioners are at risk not only from the police and private security organisations, but also from being attacked and having their possessions stolen while wandering alone at night.
Warchalking is the practice of making chalk marks on walls or pavements to indicate a wireless access point. The mark may be placed by the owner of the wireless network or the owner may know nothing about it. The wireless access point can be found using specialist software on a laptop or handheld device. If an open node is found, it can be used to access the internet or check e-mails.
The chalked symbols are supposedly based on those used by hobos during the depression in the US to indicate a household where food and shelter might be expected or one where the reception might be less generous.
Matt "Blackbelt" Jones, an information architect, created the warchalking symbols and posted them on the internet. But freelance writer Ben Hammersley had already come up with the idea of opening his network up to neighbours and passers-by, and it was Hammersley who chalked the first mark outside his house.
However, the buzz over warchalking, so loud last summer, died down before the end of the year. One website, www.warchalking.org, ran an obituary in January 2003 with the headline "How warchalking died". It was possibly a premature move, as the site was still receiving posts from new enthusiasts in June.
Warchalking might have provided an opportunity for some people to get out more, but few seem to have taken it. When did you last see a warchalking mark? Have you ever seen one?
The New York Times made warchalking one of its "ideas of...