Leet Speak 1337

Leet (or 1337 or l33t5p34k) is a form of coded writing, in which letters are replaced by numbers or symbols graphically similar to common alphanumeric characters.

The term leet speak comes from the English elite speak which translates to language of the elite as opposed to those who do not understand the language, the neophytes (noobs).

The Leet Speak language consists of replacing the common characters (letters A-Z and sometimes digits 0-9) by others having a similar writing. The leet writing is therefore not unique and there are more or less complex variants 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 is tedious, identify potential usual patterns of symbols and deduct the others. In the case where there is no separator, clearly identify the beginnings and ends of each word.

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).

On one hand, the Leet Speak introduces ambiguous symbols (1 = I or L) and on the other hand, it exists variants like HexSpeak which uses only hexadecimal characters 0123456789ABCDEF, it also exist a variant of que 90 degree leet speak (LSPK90CW).

Originally R is written |2, and Z is written 2, but Z is rare, confusions are few and the use of 2 has spread to R.

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

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.