Forgetting has high stakes. As wireless broadband approaches ubiquity in many parts of North America, the stories we tell about the origins of the internet are more important than ever. Faced with crises such as censorship and surveillance, policy makers and technologists call on a mythic past for guidance. In times of uncertainty, the most prominent historical figures—the “forefathers” and the “innovators”—are granted a special authority to make normative claims about the future of telecommunications. As long as the modem world is excluded from the internet’s origin story, the everyday amateur will have no representation in debates over policy and technology, no opportunity to advocate for a different future.