Comment

Five years ago: and whatever happened to war-chalking?

Supposedly, hobos and travellers in some parts of the world put secret marks on the gates of houses, warning each other of hostile home-owners, or indicating helpful ones. And Warchalking was supposed to do the same for WiFi hotspots.

Back in July 2002, we all got quite excited about it. NewsWireless wrote: "Most people don't protect their wireless access points from odd visitors; but finding where these open access points are, is complex."

How the world has changed. Most people today are capable of finding a hotspot with a pocket detector, if they don't have Windows XP which does it automatically. Net-Stumbler? Who needs it?

So we ask the question we asked five years ago: "Traditionally, Netstumbler was used to spot them. Now, there may be a better way. In sociological terms, what does this mean?"

Not, sadly, a way of sharing WiFi. Well, there's Fon, which is a great way. Maybe one day we'll have a network of LocustWorld meshes, all linked.

Or, maybe, we'll have a world where WiFi is seen as antisocial? as antisocial as smoking in a pub will be tomorrow?