[MLB-WIRELESS] Fw: A $1 wager: Wireless "warchalking" does not exist

[Barry Park]

It's all a myth, guys.
- Barry

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Declan McCullagh" <declan at well.com>
To: <politech at politechbot.com>
Sent: Wednesday, July 02, 2003 11:53 PM
Subject: FC: A $1 wager: Wireless "warchalking" does not exist


> 
> 
> ----- Forwarded message from jeremy hunsinger <jhuns at vt.edu> -----
> 
> From: jeremy hunsinger <jhuns at vt.edu>
> Subject: Warchalking does not exist: a wager.
> To: cypherpunks
> Date: Mon, 30 Jun 2003 12:01:50 -0400
> X-Mailer: Apple Mail (2.552)
> 
> Forwarded for a colleague:
> 
> 
> For background, Warchalking is the use of symbols (marked with chalk) to
> indicate the presence of a Wi-Fi hotspot.  In pure form, the story of
> warchalking is that there is a subculture of Wi-Fi users that use chalk 
> to
> communicate with each other about Wi-Fi locations.  Hip/cool businesses 
> then
> co-opted the subcultural warchalking to advertise their own hotspots.  
> More
> at:  http://www.warchalking.org/
> 
> My contention is that the first (subcultural) story about warchalking 
> above
> is entirely a media phenomenon -- it is a beautiful idea, but it doesn't
> make any sense as a directory service to find Wi-Fi.  It is too easy to 
> miss
> a warchalk mark, and the chalk wears away (or washes away in the rain) 
> too
> quickly.  Warchalking symbols were heavily promoted in the New York 
> Times
> just *48 hours* after they were first made public on the Web.  There 
> was a
> subsequent wave of media stories about warchalking, giving everyone 
> ideas.
> Every single occurrence of chalk I've found can be attributed to 
> chalkers
> who want to self-promote their own mark.  So I believe that people *do*
> rarely make warchalking marks for various reasons (to be cool, to 
> advertise
> for their own network) but I *don't* believe that people use warchalking
> marks in a meaningful way to find Wi-Fi.
> 
> After the conversation with Steve, on December 18th I posted an call to 
> many
> colleagues around the world asking for verifiable instances of 
> warchalking
> that work the way that warchalking describes itself.  Reports to date:
> zero.  If warchalking worked as a directory location service, shouldn't 
> I be
> able to find it?
> 
> I just had a close call -- a friend told me that my office at Oxford had
> been warchalked.  Since it is a WEP (non-open) node and I didn't do it, 
> this
> could be half of a "true" instance of warchalking!  I ran out as soon 
> as I
> heard but couldn't find the mark.  It must have washed away?  (Here in
> England, it is raining.)
> 
> So I am willing to propose a wager, or a bounty.  I'll bet one dollar 
> that
> warchalking is not a meaningful way of locating Wi-Fi hotspots.  To win 
> the
> bounty, can anyone deliver someone that uses warchalking to locate Wi-Fi
> hotspots?
> 
> Caveats:  (1) Warchalking done by the provider of the hotspot does not
> count -- it is supposedly a co-option of the "pure" subculture.  I 
> dispute
> the subculture, not the self-promotion.  (2) I am not disputing that
> wardriving, warwalking, and online hotspot mapping (warchalking with 
> bits in
> GIS databases, not with chalk) exist as advertised.  (Though others 
> have.)
> My beef here is only about the chalk part.
> 
> I've made a web page for this bet that has the relevant emails I've 
> sent and
> some links:  http://www.niftyc.org/bet/
> 
> As you may have guessed I'm writing a paper about this.  Email me if you
> want a copy when I finish.  Thank you for any help!
> 
> Christian
> 
> 
> 
> --
> http://www.niftyc.org/
> 
> ----- End forwarded message -----
> 
> 
> 
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