Walk on the wireless side offers latest exercise in worldwide Webmanship

Back in the far-off days before the World Wide Web, the only way most of us could get access to the Internet was through the world of bulletin board systems (BBS).

For those of who cannot remember that far back, the BBS were computers connected to the world via a modem.

The problem with these systems was that most had just one or two lines. And connecting your own modem with a working BBS could involve a lot of patient redialling. Hence the birth of the wardialler - a piece of software that would repeatedly dial numbers until it found a modem willing to answer.

With the pervasion of wireless networking, wardriving was born. It could have been warwalking, but nobody in the United States walks. Wardrivers simply boot up their wireless laptops and cruise the neighbourhood scanning for open networks.

In London, traffic is generally so gridlocked that if you were to find an open network, you could check your e-mail, surf some Web sites and maybe download a few movies before driving out of range. And so came warchalking. Pedestrians with iPaqs pound the pavement in search of open networks. When they find them, they chalk symbols on the ground to alert others to the access point.

Since June, when inventor Matt Jones first told the BBC about his new hobby, the idea has spread worldwide (it still has yet to reach Hong Kong). He has since begun referring to his progeny as 'a curse'.

And, as with any wildfire technology craze, warchalking has already inspired a rash of spin-offs. We now have pubchalking for drinkers, blogchalking for bloggers, whorechalking for sex-fiends, psychalking for paranoids on the lookout for mind-control devices and the ultimate warchalking aid - chalkchalking. After all, how many of us even know where to buy chalk these days?