Cartoon Leopards Are Reading Your Email!

Hey, boys and girls!  Betcha didn’t know that the National Security Agency has a kids’ page online!

Yes, apparently No Such Agency, the government’s most clandestine service, has figured out that the best way to get the hackers and cryptographers of tomorrow is to hook ’em young.  (After all, it worked for J Edgar Hoover, Post Toasties, and the Junior G-Men.)

Online, you can join the trademarked CryptoKids, including the equally trademarked Crypto Cat and Decipher Dog, in various coding and code-breaking activities.  You can also learn Morse code, build coding machines at home, download coloring books, and find out about exciting career opportunities in the NSA!

The latest recruits to the CryptoKids are the CyberTwins, a pair of cartoon snow leopards whose headgear suggests that they’ve cloned your cellphone and are listening to you right now!

The site has everything but a Back button, which would make it ever so much easier to navigate.  Well, that and easy step-by-step instructions for making your computer secure against Internet intrusion, as for example by navigating the 193-regulation-long flow chart recently issued by the Pentagon.

Just another reminder from the find folks at Ft. Meade that October is National Cybersecurity Awareness Month . . .