While there are sophisticated encrypting programs, there are also those that are used by almost anyone provided that the users know what symbols are being used.  Geeks and even non-geeks can hide messages using substitutes for the English alphabet.  This symbolic writing is known in technical communities as leet speak or 1337.

1337 is a cryptic writing language used to shorten the typed messages or as a form of encryption to hide the nature or meaning of the message sent.  The term “leet” refers to those with elite status in message boards in the 1980s.  It actually originated from 31330 “eleet,” which is the UDP port that the hacker group Dead Cow Cult used to hack Windows 95. The language really is not owned by any specific group.  Anyone can use and write “leet” and anyone can have or use its own ciphers to decode it.

The way to use it is by substituting alphanumeric characters or symbols to each character or words from any common communication language such as English.  The language can also be developed to include intentional phonetic spelling, new words or even misspellings. Traditionally, the primary strategy is using homoglyphs – symbols that closely resemble the letter for which they stand or an Argot also referred to as a “secret language” for obscurity. It is ever changing but it really has no borders, rules or barriers on what encoding you could use, only that there should be an agreement or a set of protocols for the group to use.

In the past, gamers used leet speak as a communications tool.  Currently, anyone could be using leet speak.  Chatting teens and young adults who often logon to the Internet are  often using this method.

Generally for starters, you could actually use the example below for a quick and simple “leet” letter substitution.  It is the most common and traditional cipher used for “leet speak.” You can also find some advanced ones in the Internet, or just make up one for your group.

• A = 4, /-, @, ^, / , //-\, ci
• B = 8, ]3, ]8, |3, |8, ]]3, 13
• C = (, { , [[, <, €
• D = ), [}, |), |}, |>, [>, ]]), Ð
• E = 3, ii, €
• F = |=,(=, ]]=, ph
• G = 6, 9, (_>, [[6, &
• H = #, |-|, (-), )-(, }{, }-{, {-}, /-/, -, |~|, []-[], ]]-[[
• I = 1, !, |, ][, []
• J = _|, u|, ;_[], ;_[[
• K = |<, |{, ][<, ]]<, []<
• L = |,1, |_, []_, ][_, £
• M = //, |/|, [/], (/), /V, []V[], \, (T), ^^, .\, //., ][\//][,
• N = //, ||, (), /|/, [], {}, ][][, [][], ~
• O = 0, (), [], <>, *, [[]]
• P = |D, |*, |>, []D, ][D
• Q = commas are necessary: (,) or 0, or O, or O or []
• R = |2, |?, |-, ]]2 []2 ][2
• S = 5, $
• T = 7, +, ']‘, 7`, ~|~, -|-, ‘][', "|", †
• U = (_), |_|, _, /_/, _/, []_[], ]_[, µ
• V = / , \//
• W = //, |/|, [/], (/), VV, ///, ^/, \///, 1//, /1/, 1/1/
• X = ><, }{, )(, }[
• Y = ‘/, %, `/, j , “//, ¥, j, |/, -/
• Z = 2, z, 7_,`/_

This can explain how “leet” or “elite” came to be written as “1337” (1=L, 3=E and 7=T).

Some simple vocabularies:

n00b – Short for noobie, misspelling of newbie.

0wn3d you ! – Short for I’ve beaten you, probably the most common leet in gaming.

Where did it come from?

In the early 1980’s a group of chatters/gamers devised a way that will not allow their newsgroups from being indexed by the “Bulletin Board System” Chat operators.  Others are also using this method to prevent their websites from being picked up by a simple keyword search by replacing certain characters with number on their domain names.

The purpose of leet was to prevent others from discovering coordinated battle strategies or banning or discouraging them from discussing forbidden topics such as cracking, hacking and other forms of pornography.

It became popular as a communications lingo when Id software in 1994 began adding Internet connectivity to a game called Doom 1 and 2.

How does it relate to hacking?

It cannot be considered as one of the primary tools for hacking but it can be useful for ciphering your electronic communications, most especially if you are planning a coordinated hack group strike in an area or facility. However, there are traditional ciphering tools in the market that can be used to encrypt and decrypt sent messages to prevent eavesdropping.  The leet speaks serves as a second wave of encryption to keep the message from being decoded.

How is it looked upon in the hacking world today?

Real hackers would look at leet as amateurish in nature.  When those wannabe-hackers caught on the language, they started using it thinking that they would become real hackers just by doing so.  They forgot that hacking requires real knowledge and skills.  Right now, hackers openly mock kids who use 1337 just to appear (,00£.”"