[dannyobrien]

I was adjacent to the folks who came up with this (I think it was almost entirely Matt Jones' work creating that PDF). The symbols were intended to be useful, and there was a flurry of subsequent usage (including official labels at cafes, etc). It didn't have a huge amount of organic growth, but it was a form that journalists could write about, and it made more concretely explicable the somewhat trickier but more prevalent concept of wardriving.

It may have been an artifact of the time, but it remains to me surprising how quickly and easily a timely and well-packaged idea can catch people's attention and propagate, even now. (Note that warchalking preceded John Hodgeman's book, but he too was playing off the background curiousity of hobo signs. There's no necessary origin point for combinations like this. You're just mixing and matching what's in the air.)

Our same rough circle of people are why you talk of Betteridge's law, life-hacking, or even know about that Steve Balmer "Developers! Developers!" video. If it didn't come through that route, those concepts or presentations would almost emerged from some other corner of the online world. There was no ulterior motive, no intent to get rich or famous, just people playing as they do with what's interesting in the world around them, and the ideas they spark.

[xtiansimon]

I remember reading about warchalking at the time. I thought it was the coolest idea. I had a Titanium MacBook and knew the difficulty for finding WiFi. You could find open routers at that time. I lived in the suburbs, but I imagined it would be cool to try in the city. I was socializing in the Burning Man community then, and my friends and I were drawn to hacking ideas like this.