1337

[DonQuai]

I have a question.. What is 1337?:confused:

[Myst]

http://i1.tinypic.com/nno506.png

1337 or L33T:
"An artificial water channel often leading to or from a mill." (leat)

Saying that is a metaphor for saying that something is artificial but still useful. For example: "That girl is wearing 1337 makeup!" means that her face looks like plastic but she'd be even uglier without it.

Or, you can use it literally: "Man, that's a wide 1337!"

[a/k]

Haha, 1337 = leet = Elite.

[DonQuai]

Just Elite? Like Police Special 1337?

[a/k]

Yup. That's it.

[FonsecaWalls]

From urbandictionary

Hacker "Sp33k" for leet, or elite. Originating from 31337 "eleet", the UDP port used by Dead Cow Cult, a hacker group, to access Windows 95 using Back Orifice, a notorious hacking program.

[SyDias]

Its like gang symbols, different characters of the keyboard used so special fed programs couldnt locate illegal internet activies.

1337 doesnt equal leet, it makes those letters.

1 = L
3 = E
3 = E
7 = T

Leet, is just the slang term for Elite.

There's an entire 26 letter/number vocabulary that hackers used and many different variations of it.

Today, many people try to use "1337 speak" to seem cool (its not, it's very played out). You'll see it with young kids associated with FPS PC games and such. Mostly young gaming enviorments which hold low level moderation.

[Oculus Infernus]

There's some truth in a lot of this but the origins aren't anything to do with any Dead Cow Cult, the origins are a lot less mysterious.

Grab your calculator, assuming you have one, and punch in the numbers 13373

Now turn it upside down.

That's all there is to the origins of the use of 1337, they just dropped the one 3 off of it when people starting saying leet instead of eleet, which is just a twisted form of elite, but since you can't do an I in a calculator, you get the idea. Used to be used mostly on old fashioned pagers. Sorta like you might put 911 before your phone number when you page someone and it's an emergency.