A closer look
The utopian, trust-based lodging network of Couchsurfing actually originated from a brazen cyber-intrusion. In 1999, founder Casey Fenton found a cheap flight to Iceland but didn't want to pay for a hotel. Instead of looking up hostels, he successfully hacked into the University of Iceland's student database and spammed 1,500 random students begging for a place to crash. He received dozens of offers, realizing that strangers were surprisingly willing to harbor internet weirdos, thus birthing the sharing economy out of a borderline felony.
