The mad penguins network of west coast hactivists originated out of freeTech 2007. Read more about freeTech.

These hackmeetings were inspired by hackmeetings organized by hacklabs in europe. You can read about some of those here:

• http://www.sindominio.net/hackmeeting/index.php/2006/Listas
• http://kernelpanic.hacklabs.org/index.php/JocsFractals