Leet Speak 1337

Leet Speak (or 1337, l33t, or l33t5p34k) is a form of coded writing that originated in internet culture. It consists of replacing certain letters with numbers or graphically similar symbols.

The word leet comes from elite: this language was initially used by groups of users wishing to distinguish themselves from novices (noobs) who didn't understand the code.

Leet Speak relies on replacing letters of the alphabet with numbers or symbols that visually resemble them.

Leet writing is therefore not unique, and there are more or less complex variations for each character.

In its most basic version, the leet replaces at least the letter E by the number 3, the letter O by the number 0, the letters I and L by the number 1, the letter S by the number 5 and the letter T by the number 7.

In its advanced version, the leet offers character combinations for a single letter. Here is a 1337 leetspeak alphabet (not exhaustive)

Reading Leet Speak can take some practice to identify the most common symbols and recognize similarities with the original letters.

Without separators, it can be difficult to identify the beginnings and ends of words.

The ciphered message has few alphabetic characters and lots of |_\[]031{} etc.

The number 1337 is a big clue, the presence of terms mixing letters and numbers like h4ck1ng (hacking) or g33k (geek) are clues.

Some call this language n00b 5p34k (noob speak) to denote an exaggerated or inappropriate use of leet.

There are several variations of Leet Speak:

— Simplified: only a few basic substitutions (E→3, A→4, etc.)

— Advanced: uses complex combinations (|\/|, |-|, ][, etc.).

— HexSpeak: language limited to hexadecimal characters (0-9, A-F)

— 90° Leet (LSPK90H): letters rotated at a 90-degree angle.

Originally, the letter R was written as |2 in leet. However, the character 2 was adopted as a graphical shorthand, partly because the Z (also written as 2) is less common. Thus, for simplification, R is sometimes directly replaced by 2.

Sometimes the message leet is not only modified, some vocabulary are used (usually from English terms):

This vocabulary plays on sounds, abbreviations and numbers.

Leet Speak can be used to generate strong passwords by replacing certain letters with their Leet Speak equivalents.

Choose a basic strong password and replace some letters with Leet Speak equivalents.

The language leet seems to have appeared at the start of the 1980s. It became widespread on the Internet in the 1990s, especially in forums and network games.