Have you ever been in a chat room, a forum, guestbook, or seen a website that contains words like pr0n, warez, haxx0r and l33t? The chances are that you have, and probably thought 'what the heck is that?'. I certainly did. Now, though, I just tend to think 'why??'. Welcome to Leet Speak (l33t 5p34k), the language of script kiddies, warez d00dz, online gamers and AOL users alike!

Before I go any further, however, I'll just explain a few things. In Leet, numbers generally replace similar looking letters; eg O will be replaced by 0 (zero), I will be replaced by 1. Also, a lot of plural words have the last S replaced by a Z; eg warez, filez, romz, appz. Traditional spelling goes out the window here; dude is often spelt d00d (with two zeros), cool is spelt Kewl or k3wl (the 3 replacing the E). Symbols also play an important part in leet; for instance, a $ can be used to replace S, and the combination of symbols |< represents a K (look carefully lol). I'm sure now you can see a pattern emerging. Now to explain what a few of the words above mean (if you havent already worked them out! ); pr0n: porn, warez: pirated software, haxx0r: hacker, l33t(leet): elite, script kiddie: a wannabe hacker who uses pre written scripts to do the hacking, and finally, warez d00d: a person whose sole aim in life is to collect pirate software and put it on the web.

Rather than reinvent the wheel, I have picked the cream of the crop of leet guides, so here goes:

• Turkey Manor Design's most excellent guide. All you ever need to be l33t
• L33t 5p34k generator
• Lesbubs guide to leet
• Hacker Jargon Guide This contains soooo much about all aspects of hacker slang including l33t. Definately worth a read!