31337-isms
by Hex
Something prevalent in the hacker community is occasional, or sometimes nauseating, use of k-leet characters in communication or hacked works of art. The most popular example of k-leetism would surely be the substitution of the letter "z" for the letter "s". This emerged more as a play on pronunciation rather than what we now know as k-leet writing. The most common use of this example would be "files" or "warez".
The use of the "z" for "s" grew into using "ph" instead of "f" and "y" instead of where appropriate. "Phylez" is a perfect example. As a growing language, k-leet spawned more corruptions which seemed to flow naturally into the concept. A backwards "E" looks like a "3". The ultimate k-leet word? Perhaps it's "phyl3z". Regardless, more numbers followed suit. Here's a fancy chart displaying the number, and it's substitution(s).
Other k-leetisms emerged.
"See you later" became "cyul8r". Extra characters became fair game. A combination of slashes can be used for "w" and "n". A good example is "\/\/4R3Z".
It seems like in some places, the leeter you speak, the leeter you are. If you ever logon to #we are k-leet haxors, and all you see is this: "!@#!@.3,>!#@/3\21/321#>" then you know they are discussing Linux scripts.
Now that we're finished with newbie coolness, I've got a concern.
There are many major players in the "spread a message through a hack" scene especially Hackers for Girlies (sic?), who have fantastic opportunities to enlighten the public, but present themselves in such a foreign way as to make it difficult to communicate to the unenlightened masses.
An example: writing "p}{r33 |<3V1/\/" would not generate as much interest as typing "FREE KEVIN" in a hacked page. While there may be some hullabaloo, I feel that if the pages are presented in non-k-leet haxor English, people can better educate themselves as to the cause you are creating awareness for. Granted, during the HFG attack on The New York Times, I understand that www.freekevin.com received many hits. But I feel that if the message on the Times' hacked page were in common English, it would have educated more people.
Most newbies would look at "D1S P493 \/10L473D 8y <0nD0R" and think, "Oh no! I've got some kind of virus! I'd better put in my unprotected McAfee disk to save the day!" And they would learn nothing.
I though of doing this whole thing in k-leet but that would have been hideous.
Hope you learned that you teach more people stuff bye writing in English, rather than impressing your friends by talking like a |<-1337, |(-R4|>, $uP4-|>uP4, }{4><0R from da P14/\/e7 )-(4<74$t1K4 (K-leet, K-rad, Supa-Dupa, Haxor from a Planet Hactastika).