[Air-l] Warchalking does not exist: a wager.

Socio Admin admin at sociopranos.com
Mon Jun 30 09:15:55 PDT 2003


Thought you might find the following article of interest.
http://www.wired.com/news/wireless/0,1382,53638,00.html

Angela
xxx
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----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Christian Sandvig" <csandvig at uiuc.edu>
To: <air-l at aoir.org>
Sent: Monday, June 30, 2003 4:32 PM
Subject: [Air-l] Warchalking does not exist: a wager.


>
> Hi Steve and air-l colleagues,
>
> Steve:  Remember the hallway conversation we had last fall about whether
or
> not 'true' Warchalking exists?  If I remember, it was your contention that
> it does and that you'd seen it in the Loop.  As you know I'm doing a
> research project on Wi-Fi and I've been trying to settle this for a while.
> I'm writing this note to air-l because I need help.
>
> 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/
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
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> Air-l at aoir.org
> http://www.aoir.org/mailman/listinfo/air-l
>





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