Numb3rs, Season 6

Amita Ramanujan:
Tal Feigenbaum is easily as good a hacker as Augie.

Charlie Eppes:
Yeah, he's probably trying to … decode the backdoor, too.

Don Eppes:
You know, what if he's not trying to hack Augie? I mean, what if he's trying to find him?

Amita Ramanujan:
IRC. Internet Relay Chat. It's how hackers talk when they don't want to be overheard.

Charlie Eppes:
It's a pretty primitive chat program.

Amita Ramanujan:
Think of it like shipping channels in the ocean. You can't see them until a boat cuts through the water leaving a wake. If two boats meet in the middle of the ocean to swap a load of illegal drugs, you have to catch them in real time, otherwise there's no evidence of the meeting left behind.

Charlie Eppes:
No names, no accounts, no records of exchange.

Don Eppes:
Well, how do they see each other?

Amita Ramanujan:
Online names.

Don Eppes:
Okay, so what, we've got "the_fist", and, and … what's Augie's?

Amita Ramanujan:
[points at the website] "00zemeister". I'll set up an alarm to alert us if either name enters an IRC channel.

Don Eppes:
Can we see what they're saying?

Amita Ramanujan:
In leetspeak. Luckily, I speak leet.

Charlie Eppes:
That's so hot!