W I R E L E S S S O C I E T Y
Tales From The Hood: "I've Been Warchalked!"
By Chris Taylor
November 3, 2003
The chalk markings appeared on the sidewalk a few days after I
moved into my new house. A symbol that looked like two half-moons
back to back was scrawled beneath the words "Outside the Box."
What did it mean? Was it some bizarre pagan ritual conducted by
aficionados of business slogans? Nope—Outside the Box was the
name I had assigned on my computer to my wi-fi network. There was
only one explanation: I'd been warchalked.
Warchalking began a couple of years ago in London, and has since
spread to the sidewalks of Seattle, New York City and San
Francisco. Wireless guerrillas walk or drive around a city with
wi-fi—enabled laptops, sniffing out wireless networks. They
leave hieroglyphs that, to the untrained eye, look like graffiti.
The symbols not only alert those in the know to a hot spot but
also reveal how fast the network is and whether it requires a
password. No password required for me—hence the open-faced
moons.
Nobody knows who invented warchalking, but it seems the practice
was inspired by stories of Great Depression-era hoboes who left
chalk markings outside the most charitable houses. It was hard
for me to imagine a gang of digital hoboes so hard up for
Internet access that they had to squat outside my house, huddled
around a Thinkpad. But if they did, I could hardly chase these
virtual varmints away with a broom. After all, my network was
open. It was as if I had left milk and cookies on the sidewalk.
They wouldn't be trespassing on my property. Or would they?
On websites like warchalking.org, debate rages over whether the
practice is legal—or moral. The law is kind of fuzzy here,
especially since each state has its own definitions of trespass
in the virtual world. In California, thanks to a recent state
supreme court ruling, it's relatively clear. A former Intel
employee who used the company's network without permission to
send 35,000 anti-Intel e-mails was cleared of wrongdoing. Since
he hadn't injured the network itself, the court ruled, he hadn't
broken any trespass law.
So unless those hoboes were planting viruses on my system, I
would have no right to stop them surfing away. Nor, I soon
decided, would I want to. (Charity begins at your home network, I
say.) The rain has long since washed my sidewalk clean of double
moons. But if you ever happen to wardrive by my house, don't be
shy. Knock before you warchalk. You'll find surfing is a lot more
comfortable inside the box.
THE KEY
OPEN NODE This wi-fi signal is unprotected
CLOSED NODE This one needs a password
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