I haven't been able to find the interview online, but were the sexual predators actually using leet (characterized by particular kinds of morphosyntax, lexical items, cypher-type spellings, etc.) or just using an informal register that uses conventions like 'lol' and 'cu l8r'? I know MSN and the various watchdog groups use the label 'leet' to identify ANY type of CMC-specific speech style. Looking at the conversation transcripts from pervertedjustice.com doesn't show much leet being used by the predators anyway, and most of the ones that are 30 and older speak fairly formally to the kids. Joshua Joshua Raclaw - PhD student Department of Linguistics University of Colorado at Boulder http://ucsu.colorado.edu/~raclaw/ Quoting Gail Taylor <gdtaylor@uiuc.edu>: * CNN had a guest this morning who was talking about the manner * in which sexual predators are using Leet Speak in online * conversations with children. This information might be of * interest to those of you who are tracking the migration of * leet speak from gaming environments to online conversation * spaces. The person who was a spokesperson from * pervertedjustice.com which maintains a web site designed to * deter sexual predators. * * Prior to seeing the news story, I wasn't aware of the * existence of this grassroot organization which is using the * web site as a way to gather information to assist law * enforcement agencies in identifying and arresting suspects. * The information in the FAQ is quite interesting. There is * information indicating this organization has been dragged * into court on several occasions by citizens concerned with * civil liberty violations. * * Interesting site from a lot of different angles. * * -- Gail * * ***************************** * Gail D. Taylor, M.Ed. * University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign * Human Resource Education Ph.D. Student * Educational Psychology Teaching Assistant * * "The beautiful thing about learning is that no one * can take that away from you." -- B.B. King, Blues Musician * _______________________________________________ * The air-l@listserv.aoir.org mailing list * is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org * Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: * http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org * * Join the Association of Internet Researchers: * http://www.aoir.org/ *