2001

At fifteen, I got my first WiFi card. It changed everything. Suddenly, the internet wasn’t just something you plugged into - it was everywhere. We’d drive around at night, laptops open, antennas taped to soda cans, scanning for open networks. Wardriving, we called it. It felt underground. Illicit. Thrilling. Like we were in on something the rest of the world hadn’t caught up to yet. Around that time, I started meeting others like me — curious, restless, wired differently. At local events, in IRC channels, sometimes in person. That’s when I realized: this wasn’t just a hobby anymore. It was a culture.