InfoSec Meetings

Hackers like to hang out. If you want to "get into hacking" and you want to do that by exploring the scene instead of by fucking around on computers, a meeting isn't a bad place to start. There are two main infosec meetups that I know of with multiple cities and locations and they are:

2600 Meetings

2600 Magazine, the "hacker quarterly" is a magazine that was started decades ago that covers hacking and infosec topics. The magazine still exists, and the magazine's site lists global 2600 meetups. Most meetings are on the first Friday of the month in their respective cities. Check your local city's information for details and check social media or public pages about the meetup for more info.

DefCon Groups

DefCon is a computer security conference that has been around for approximately a million (thirty) years. It is very large and very popular. DC Groups are groups of people who organize in their local areas to work on hackery projects of various types; they are only vaguely connected to the conference, but the conference site hosts information about the groups]. If you want to participate in a group in your area, see if they have a regular meetup or if they have open projects that you could participate in.