This isn’t something anyone used, it was a meme. See, in 2005 John Hodgeman (PC in the old Mac vs. PC Apple ads) published “The Areas of My Expertise” [ https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Areas_of_My_Expertise#Th... ], including a description of hobo signs and 700 hobo names. Hodgeman was on The Daily Show and the hobo thing took off for a few minutes. I went to one of Hodgeman’s signings during that book tour. Jona…
It is a meme in the Dawkins' sense of the word. The set of three symbols contains the necessary and sufficient information to connect to an open wireless node (has-content or purpose). Warchalk symbols can *mutate* by being drawn expertly (think surface location and size) or poorly (bad handwriting makes SSID illegible) and can be deployed expertly (sign marks the location of highest signal strength) or poorly (sign only gives general area--YMMV). Warchalking can *replicate*, because once I demonstrate these symbols, any techie could replicate the Warchalking meme.
The cultural context of 2002 is really interesting. In 2002 and we're still on 802.11a/b. The Apple AirPort was out at that time. As I recall, you were required to set it up (didn't have default SSID/password), and you could leave it open. You might just do that if you're not so hip to the whole SSID and WEP terminology, and thinking differently about you network's security--more simply as a computer hardware consumer. And Jonny Ive was making some smart looking Apple products that sparked consumer consumption. Lots of product in the hands of novice computer users.
Piracy was huge! Software (Hotline) and music (Napster). The punk ethic (going to war against the man/corporations), before music industry went on it's own war against piracy. I would even go as far to suggest (software) piracy and it's punk ethic was rebranded as "darkweb" full of terrorists and predators.
Squat and Gobble and coffee shops were adding WIFI to attract customers. Warchalking demonstrates to a decision maker it doesn't take much information to communicate this service to these potential laptop carrying high-income customers. You don't have to "Warchalk" to get something useful out the Warchalking meme.
People leaving their networks open is just bad network security. It was never going to last to become widely adopted practice. (Now all of our routers come pre-configured with default SSID and passwords--that's another story, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Default_password).
Warchalking, no matter how many people did this (five or five hundred people), it still works as a meme. It communicates, it mutates, and it replicates. Brilliant.
Similar street language? "Colorful Language: Decoding Utility Markings Spray-Painted on City Streets (2018)" https://99percentinvisible.org/article/colorful-language-dec...