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£.

1. TrueCrypt: With TrueCrypt, you get the functionality to encrypt an entire partition of your hard drive if you so wish. Once encrypted, you can then store and access files on the partition like you would any other part of your computer. The best part? The encrypted files aren’t marked so there’s no way for an intruder to tell what’s sensitive info right off the bat.
2. LockNote: Using AES 256, this program encrypts your documents. It can be useful for securing business information and sensitive communications. The recipient of the document must have a password to be able to decrypt the information.
3. S-Tools: If you’re interested in steganographics, give this tool a try. It hides your encrypted files in GIF or WAV files and allows you to easily compress and send them as well. 
4. GNU Privacy Guard: This open source encryption tool offers a free way to get public key encryption. With this, you can encrypt any emails you send out that you want to keep private and secure, with the passwords for access known only to you and your recipient.
5. Cryptainer LE: The name for this program says it all, as it can be used to create small (25 MB) containers within your hard drive where encrypted information can be stored.
6. File Buddy: Use File Buddy to encrypt your files and erase the original un-encrypted versions from your computer so they won’t be hanging around for prying eyes to find.
7. CompuSec: Want to just go ahead and secure the whole shebang? This free tool lets users secure their entire hard drive, disks, memory sticks, and more.

While encryption is no guarantee of data protection it is one big step away from simply being a sitting duck with information there for the taking, and with so many free programs out there it’s silly not to give it a try.

This post was contributed by Megan Jones, who writes about the college degrees. She welcomes your feedback at Meg.Jones0310 at gmail.com

For secure online transactions, a form of encryption is used called Secure Sockets Layer (SSL).  SSL is an Internet security protocol used by Internet browsers and Web servers to transmit sensitive information, or, in simple terms, a secure method of communication between an Internet browser (user) and web server (website).
Firstly, to identify secure pages that are using SSL, check the URL. https://www.domain.com is secure while http://www.domain.com is not. Remember HTTPS and there’s also a padlock symbol at the bottom of the page or at the address bar.

SSL uses certificate authorities. The certificate authority acts as a middleman that both computers trust. It confirms that each computer is in fact who it says it is, and then creates an encrypted session or communication between the two computers. Once the session is finished, the certificate authority used for that session is discarded. Any additional sessions will require a new certificate authority.

Since nothing in this world is perfect, there is always someone (hackers) out there trying to bypass the encrypted session, whether to get small information or totally destroy the encrypted session. They do this by primarily attacking the insecure part of the system – http, through phishing or fake web pages since most users do not directly access the secure page. This is also somewhat caused by the user. Most users do not notice that there is no letter ‘s’ after http or they just notice the padlock symbol. Another cause of phishing is Internet browsers themselves, despite their capabilities of identifying fake web pages.

However, this doesn’t mean that SSL is totally unreliable. You can overcome its weaknesses by ensuring that the URL has HTTPS. And if you have the budget, you can purchase antivirus software or (Total security) software that doesn’t only protect your computer against virus, Trojan, worm and other malicious software, but also against phishing attacks. There are even some products that can be integrated with your Internet browser, which gives you an additional defense against phishing attacks.

Protect EXE uses the twofish encryption algorithm to encrypt the EXE’s with a 256 bit key. It does not require an install and is very easy to use. Simply browse to the application you would like to encrypt, put in a password, and hit “Crypt exe”. Restoring the file is just as easy. It is recommended to create a backup of the file you are encrypting just in case something goes wrong.

You can download Protect EXE : HERE.

Another great program with the same purpose is Empathy. It is free but to use all of it’s functions (like more then one letter password) you must get it registered by sending a picture postcard to the owner, Michal Strehovsky. Creepy? Just a little.

You can get Empathy, and postage information HERE.

Who wants to learn how to hack?

SSH replaces ancient insecure applications like TELNET for Windows and rlogin, rsh, rcp, and rexec for both Linux and Windows.

If computer A wants to connect to computer B via a secure SSH connection, computer A must be running an SSH client and computer B must be running an SSH daemon or server. When data goes from computer A, it is encrypted and received at computer B, where it is decrypted.

Now for the visual learners, imagine SSH as a condom.

Let’s say a man (computer) wants to send some data (pecker) to another computer (woman), he will want to do it securely without having his man juices (passwords) leaked (sniffed) and unintentially pollinating the woman (infect, gain unathoraized access via sniffed passwords) , to do this, he will use a condom (SSH) to withhold the man juices (encrypt the data) for a secure path/channel.

What is SSH used for?

• To securely log into a shell on a remote host and to securely execute commands on that remote host.
• To securely transfer files.
• For browsing the web securely via an encrypted proxy connection.

Find this interesting? Want to learn how to hack? Click Here Now.