Cryptic graffiti spray-painted next to a swastika on Juneau's lone synagogue angered and confused many late last month.
Police initially labeled the mark "pp4lyf" as "gang-related graffiti," but to some Internet-savvy youth the tag seems less likely to be a sign of the infiltration of organized hatemongers in Juneau than of the proliferation of an increasingly popular type of computer slang known as "leetspeak."
Leetspeak, or leet, is a computer communication style in which letters are replaced with numbers and symbols to spell or abbreviate phrases and sentences. Although leet is far from new - it is believed to date back to the 1980s when hackers and programmers used it to mask their communication - the lingo has become popular in recent years with the explosion of interactive video games, instant messaging and social networking Web sites.
-- ClubHooligan.com - Cyber wordsmiths transform the 3N9Li$H languagePolice initially labeled the mark "pp4lyf" as "gang-related graffiti," but to some Internet-savvy youth the tag seems less likely to be a sign of the infiltration of organized hatemongers in Juneau than of the proliferation of an increasingly popular type of computer slang known as "leetspeak."
Leetspeak, or leet, is a computer communication style in which letters are replaced with numbers and symbols to spell or abbreviate phrases and sentences. Although leet is far from new - it is believed to date back to the 1980s when hackers and programmers used it to mask their communication - the lingo has become popular in recent years with the explosion of interactive video games, instant messaging and social networking Web sites.
Somehow this seems like some kind of creepy turning point for geek culture.
tagged: tagging, gaming
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