WarChalking

[jinxy]

Hi all,
Just wandered if anyone had come across the term warchalking. I have just come across it whilst reading:

WarDriving: Drive, Detect, Defend: A Guide to Wireless Security
by Chris Hurley, Michael Puchol, Russ Rogers and Frank Thornton

Aparently it's the practice of publicly marking wireless networks that have been discovered.

Dam, the authers don't say what the mark looks like, not yet atleast. :D

[RoadClosed]

There are a few, common open node I have seen since last year:

Open Node )(


Closed node ()
Broken WEP (w)

[cacosapo]

from Enciclopaedia:
http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/w/warchalking.html

[Lv4]

yah I have seen both the term warchalking and actual warchalking... I just stumbled across some on Friday on the way back to work from my bank :)

There is a warchalking tutorial out there somewhere. I'll google it in a bit and post back.

[thehorse13]

Have a look at this PDF. I used it to present my case to the Govt. agency that I work for when chalking first turned up at some public offices of ours. I also showed how the chalk marks matched up perfectly with the WAP settings. Since then, we have gone to a much better wireless solution.

Anyway, here ya go:

http://www.blackbeltjones.com/warchalking/warchalking0_9.pdf

[Lv4]

I couldn't find the original tut I was talking about in my last post but I did remember where I found it.


http://www.warchalking.org/

[cacosapo]

i cant believe that a .org already exists to take care of that:
http://www.warchalking.org/

man, im outdated

[jinxy]

border firewall + WAP (wireless access point) =>> wireless lan =>> internal firewall =>> protected internal lan From JP's post here:http://www.antionline.com/showthread.php?threadid=257855#post747511

Would not seem as over the top as some of us may have at first thought.

[Cybr1d]

I've come across the term before but never actually seen the characters on the sidewalk. I live in the East Coast, Boston to be exact...and haven't noticed any marks on the sidewalks, not that I've been looking anyways. I do know some hotspots though that I use when I need them. The wide number of colleges around here also allow people to connect to the internet wirelessly without worrying too much about marking the sidewalks anyways :).

[Lv4]

I saw some more warchalking this afternoon on the walk back from the gym to work. Same ones that I saw on Friday but in a completely different area. Looks like someone is mapping downtown SF again :)

[Cybr1d]

Right now I doubt there's a need to map any town or city....wireless hotspots have become so common that anywhere you go, chances are you'll find a hotspot. Back in the day, you'd have like one hotspot in very wide area, making it necessary to warchalk. At least here in the East Coast, there's plenty of them.

[RoadClosed]

The whole thing has become common and less significant. You can even buy little boxes for next to nothing that beep when one is found. Just hang some designed for your net type from a key chain and walk around. There are dozens, here is one (http://www.welovemacs.com/33063.html) .

[Killa_bud]

Yeah how do you think I get on the web right now,..... Joke .but I have heard of it...never done it ..but I have walked around and done some thing like that.I'll call it warWalking.

[AngelicKnight]

I gotta say though, I think the attempt at making the case for warchalking being ethical was lame, quite laughable. Eh, maybe I'm just a stick in the mud. :)

[RoadClosed]

Ethical? How's this for a joke. My respected friend built out a city wide wireless network, pretty damn secure but someone is bound to configure something wrong some day, it's too big for the amount of techs. So I argued against it and challenged him.... well I never found the time but one night I had the ideas to put a HUGE war chalk outside his Window so he could see it in the morning. He about shit all over himself but I had dropped an email so he wouldn't have his guys running all over chasing a ghost. So one can see the benefit of cruel jokes this modern phenomena can bring? :D

[AngelicKnight]

Heh heh, indeed...

[Lv4]

found more warchalking this morning on the way to my local vitamin store. it's amazing what you will find when you are just roaming around and "looking" at things

You say there is no need, but it looks like there is indeed someone chalking downtown SF right now. Three chalkings found in a couple of weeks in disparate locations leads me to believe someone is mapping the area.