Educational CyberPlayGround ®

WAR DRIVING, WARCHALKING, HOBO LANGUAGE

Warchalking

Warchalking:
Chalk a simple glyph to indicate where wireless bandwidth lies. You find a node, and draw the correct symbol on a nearby piece of public furniture - a wall, the pavement, the side of a lamppost. Anyone knowing in the ways of the WarChalking will recognise what it means, and get online. No more wandering around bandwidthless, and no more struggling with online maps.

WARDRIVING

WIFI HOT SPOT FINDER

WARDRIVING FAQ'S

Monitor Marius Milner's Stumbler.net blog. Marius is the author of NetStumbler, the most widely-used stumbling utility. His blog contains notes on release levels for the program, new support for Wi-Fi client cards, and other things.

The name has roots in the movie WarGames, in which Matthew Broderick's character uses a computer to call hundreds of phone numbers in search of computer dialups, hence "war dialing."

Colbert Video on Cyberterrorism is actually based on a Real News Story:

Comedy Central Colbert Explains Wifi Theft. (may take a minute to load)

HOBO LANGUAGE

HOE BOY AMERICA'S MIGRANT WORKER

1890'sThe Golden Age of hobo culture got started when the Civil War was over and Western Expansion built the railroads

The term "hobo" derives from "hoe-boy," or migrant worker, and possibly "homeward bound," referring to uprooted Civil War veterans making their way home by rail. Hobo was the post-Civil War era, when transient, soldiers needed to get home or didn't want to return home.

Migrant workers of the Great Depression did not choose this lifestyle, but rather hopped freight by economic necessity, and were not serious contributors to hobo lore.

The classic hobo lived by the "laws of the Wanderpath," being a 'good Johnson,' a Johnson being a gentleman of the underworld, a criminal who still has a creed of ethics." It was from such a community of honorable rogues that train writing, or hobo graffiti was born.

Hobo Signs and Code Symbols You Didn't Know Existed

Hobo Graffiti icons served as a secret communications network for the freight-hopping population, informing hoboes of conditions they might expect in a particular place, from "You can sleep in hayloft" to "Hit the road, quick!" Hobo writing was documented as early as the 1930's, as this excerpt from the July, 1939 Railroad Magazine proves:

In addition to human faces and forms, students of boxcar calligraphy bump into figures of animals now and then, also pictures of trains and locomotives, but rarely any other type of machine. Most of these masterpieces are drawn by hoboes while they are waiting for freights or loafing around warehouses. Or, perchance, while enjoying free transportation at the company's expense, they show their gratitude by scribbling over the inside walls of the train. Other sketches are done by railroad men in terminal yards.

This article reveals an important aspect of train writing - that it was practiced by railroad employees as often as by hoboes themselves - and even identifies Bozo Texino as one J.H. McKinley, a Missouri Pacific engineer who adopted the moniker as his own, adding the cowboy caricature. "The development of boxcar art has been enriched by the two-way influence between tramps and trainmen. Although they are from two different classes, their drawings share common themes: frontier identity, freedom, and fantasy." http://www.northbankfred.com/p_bill.html
Whereas in McKinley's day hobo graffiti functioned as code as well as cartoon, today the informational aspect has all but vanished. The site-specific icons are "a totally dead language," according to Daniel, who characterizes today's train writing as "purely tagging, it's about identity." The loss of the visual code points to the fragmented state of today's hobo community. "Like the rest of society, it's so fractured," observes Daniel, "There's no cohesion, people don't really take care of each other, there just isn't the kind of brotherhood there once was, or so the histories would have us believe." Nevertheless, hobo culture persists into the present day, in a fashion somewhat removed from the romanticized images once created by Jacks London and Kerouac.

Hobo Code

As inscribed in the Annual Convention Congress of the Hoboes of America held on August 8, 1894 at the Hotel Alden, 917 Market St., Chicago Illinois;

1.-Decide your own life, don't let another person run or rule you.

2.-When in town, always respect the local law and officials, and try to be a gentleman at all times.

3.-Don't take advantage of someone who is in a vulnerable situation, locals or other hobos.

4.-Always try to find work, even if temporary, and always seek out jobs nobody wants. By doing so you not only help a business along, but insure employment should you return to that town again.

5.-When no employment is available, make your own work by using your added talents at crafts.

6.-Do not allow yourself to become a stupid drunk and set a bad example for locals treatment of other hobos.

7.-When jungling in town, respect handouts, do not wear them out, another hobo will be coming along who will need them as bad, if not worse than you.

8.-Always respect nature, do not leave garbage where you are jungling.

9.-If in a community jungle, always pitch in and help.

10.-Try to stay clean, and boil up wherever possible.

11.-When traveling, ride your train respectfully, take no personal chances, cause no problems with the operating crew or host railroad, act like an extra crew member.

12.-Do not cause problems in a train yard, Another hobo will be coming along who will need passage thru that yard.

13.-Do not allow other hobos to molest children, expose to authorities all molesters, they are the worst garbage to infest any society.

14.-Help all runaway children, and try to induce them to return home.

15.-Help your fellow hobos whenever and wherever needed, you may need their help someday.

16.-If present at a hobo court and you have testimony, give it, whether for or against the accused, your voice counts!