Who knows this may be a heated debate that I’m unaware of, but for now I think it fits as a general question. Mods feel free to move it if I posted to the wrong forum.
Can anyone explain the point of this style of typing to me? For the life of me, I don’t understand what most of it means, nor why anyone would want to type this way. I want to understand, really I do. This is something that I seem to be out of the loop on though.
There’s probably two main reasons for this sort of typing, often referred to as 1337, or 133+, or something similar, which signifies ‘leet’ (from [e]lite). Part of it, if not most of it, is reflected in that word – the idea that those who speak it can use it as a code and exclude anyone who doesn’t know.
The only semi-legitimate reason is that it is used to block searches from finding them as easily – since some of them engage in illegal activities, they’ll use this code to prevent themselves from being found easily. Although this isn’t unique to illegal activity or 'leet speak – I’ve seen a web page with historical information on Germany which resorted to spelling Nazi as N*zi to prevent mass hate-mailings and neo-Nazis in search of a home.
The people who “rule on the 'net” (i.e. make it work) do not speak this way. Except sometimes sarcastically, when making fun of those that do. This behaviour is associated with various neanderthals called lamers, crackers, script kiddies, or idiots, depending on the day of the month and the alignment of the planets.
The etymology of this comes from the word “hacker,” which in idiot-speak became “h4x0r” (or anyone of a million variations) and thus led to anything ending with a “k” sound to adopt the “x0r/xor” ending.
XOR is also an abbreviation for a logical-exclusive-Or.
As a psuedo-geek, I think I can try to comment on this… The only real reason people type like this is just because they think its fun.
We do it just to make life not seem so boring. For example, if we sent an email that started off with “Dude!” it would sound kinda boring. But if we spelled it “Dood! (or d00d!)” then it lends a bit more emotion.
Also, you can express emotion or enthusiasm by modifying words that end in an “-er” sound:
Hax0r
Sux0r
Rox0r
Fux0r
Essentially, the emotion expressed by saying “d00d! that sux0rs!” basically means, “dude! that fucking sucks!!”
Here’s an interesting sentence seen in a Think Geek ad:
It’s just a toy, but at http://ryanross.net/leet/ there is a tiny program you can download which automatically translates Standard English to leetspeek. It’s pointless, but kinda cute.
I think most people who have been online any length of time (to include crackers and other stereotypical leetspeekers) for the most part just use it as a joke nowadays, if they use it at all. Most of the use of it I’ve seen has been very tongue-in-cheek.)
(Or, if you will: mO5T 0PH tH3 Us3 Of 1T 1’Ve 5eeN h45 bE3n V3Ry +0nGue-IN-cHEeK.)
I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve heard the “leet speek defeats searches” argument… The fact of the matter is, any hacker (by which I mean “hacker”, not “cracker” or “leet”) can easily search for such variations, with a line and a half of code… And at the time that this idiocy started, anyone who would have been doing such a search would be sufficiently skilled to do so.
Also, I don’t think search engines have anything to do with the origin of leetspeak.
That form of techno-dialect has been going on for 15 years or more, on BBS’s.
One of the, if not THE, first word written that way in cyberspace was “warez”, as in “Wares”. From there, it lead to Filez and Gamez and Appz and Crackz and eventually the term “Elite” came around, which eventually became “Leet”, then 1337.
I was going to chime in, but I think friedo handled it perfectly well. Those who are capable of getting it will get it from his post. Those who aren’t will never get it, no matter how many of us say it. The media has shown us that in their inability to understand hacker!=cracker.
