Leet or 1337 is a often described as a "corruption" of written text. The practice of "leetspeak" or "13375p34k" emerged in BBS's, listservs, and MOOs, and is characterized by replacement of alphabetic characters by similar appearing numerals, but may also involved other replacements or radical abbreviations. Leet is not a strict one-to-one encoding. There is no standard for the practice of leet; rather, its diversity varies with the protocols and group cultures of online writing environments where it appears. The f/ph replacement in "fone phreaks" is early leet, as is the s/z replacement in "warez." The character "a" can become "@" or "4." Either substitution is based on optical recognition of characters and transposition in terms of visual similarity. Leet is character encoding for eyes that see and a body that experiences. Leet is read for the visual glyph, but also read *through* the glyph to the virtual or invisible *intentional* character suspended behind it. Every glyp! h or graphematic unit is read by rules of encoding and substitution but also through the phenomenology of address, where the glyph is meant for the reader. The illegible carries the legible within it.
The phenomenology of leet is specific to consensual domains. Leet as abbreviation allows for speed and efficiency in communication. The reduction or simplification of messages is possible within the framework of a writing environment such as a listserv or chatroom, in terms of group norms and assumptions. In fact, simplificiationis a function of this framework, and the speed gained is only possible by the accumulation and implication of group knowledge in the environment. As a derivation of the word "elite," leet presupposes identification with a particular habitus and shared cultural capital. The leet writer is part of a group and identifies with that group in the very act of reading and writing leet. As elite, leet references a sociology of hackers and users, of those "in the know." To read leet is to recognize inclusion in this habitus. The cost of recognition, however, is enforcement of the protocological constraints laminated on every string of leet. A common use of leet is for undesirable or illegal communication in monitored or censored environments. Leet allows participants in online gaming to swear without being kicked out by monitoring software. A leet formulation such as [EMAIL PROTECTED]@ can slip by email content filters. Similarly, wares or cracked software becomes "W4R3Z" and "porn" becomes "pr0n." Of course, some sort of filter could flag these terms using regular expressions, but leet as a practice of corruption means writing until there is no possibiility of detection and recovery. While a filter might flag four-letter words beginning with "p" and ending with n as a high probabilityt of being the word "porn," there is less chance of catching the expression "spl01tz" as leet for "exploits" or hacks. A related use of leet is obfuscation. In general, code obfuscation is a practice that makes computer prog! rams difficult to read and understand, typically by reducing any text-like formatting or by adding arbitrary formatting. The result compiles and runs on a machine but appears as an unintelligible mess to human eyes. The goal is to conceal information, whether from possible thefts and reverse engineering, or as a means of spamming. There is also a thriving practice of recreational or artistic code obfuscation, such as the Obfuscated PERL Contest and the International Obfuscated C Contest. Leet allows a basic form of obfuscation. For example, leet provides a quick means of generating passwords or user names as unintellgible strings. In online gaming, where administrators or higher level players can eject players with a simple "!kick username" command, the leet-generated username is a simple encryption, a hard to type and easily misrecognized. Leet is corrupted by the work of overlapping and collapsing digital domains. Leet is a palimpsest of intention and regulations condensed anagrammatically. In one direction, leet is formalized as it grows larger than specific communities and becomes a general dialect for net discourse. No longer elite, leet becomes a commercial parlance. Anyone can set their google search page to leetspeak: http://www.google.com/intl/xx-hacker/. In the other direction, leet remains problematic. "Corrupted" texts implies a cleartext suited for the domain at hand, but clearly leet is a principle of generalized corruption. All text is already encrypted in relation to the interminable working of the net. Leet references the absent body. Its corruption is the internal processing and -jectivity of readers. This means that every character encoding and every string on the net is potentially leet. leet=1337=1111=0000 Sandy
