The first hacker event that I attended was Hysteria session. I remember that everyone bought their desktop computer, there was a local IRC server and everyone started networking the way we knew - connect to the IRC server, set their nickname, get a drink.
If you wanted to assign a face to a nickname, you would negotiate over IRC, you would both raise hands and complete the handshake by raising a glass. Then back to terminal.
I think we have evolved from here. Some of us are going to cover our faces, but there will be no IRC server...