Spy Kids: The NSA Is Looking for the Next Generation of Sneaky Geeks

Crypto Cat<a href="http://www.nsa.gov/kids/bios/bios00001.shtml">NSA.gov</a>

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Although the National Security Agency is incredibly secretive and could probably care less what you think, it does have an interest in helping our kids become great mathematicians. The NSA is the largest employer of mathematicians in the country, so, the agency explains, it is “critically dependent on the continuing development of first-class American mathematicians.”

Enter the CryptoKids, the NSA’s band of codemaking and codebreaking cartoon characters. There’s Cyndi, one half of the CyberTwins, a cat with braces, two-tone hair, and what may be Google Glass. Her advice for online-savvy kids: “Mom says that once something is out on the Internet, it will be there forever, and ‘might come back to haunt us one day.'” Her brother Cy, a malware victim, also values his digital privacy and security: “The stuff on my computer is really important to me, and I don’t want anyone getting in and messing it up again!”

The CryptoKids. NSA

The CryptoKids gang also includes Crypto Cat, Decipher Dog, Rosetta Stone, and T.Top, a goateed programmer turtle. Their “advisor” is a fatigue-wearing eagle named CSS Sam (CSS stands for Central Security Service), just in case you forgot whom the NSA works for.

The characters also star in the NSA’s outreach to schools in the Washington, D.C. area through the agency’s MEPP Speakers Bureau. Some of the talks and classes offered actually sound pretty cool: Kids can get an introduction to cryptology by decoding instructions on a map to find buried treasure, or learn about ciphers in “Cryptanalysis 101.” The NSA will even come to your school’s career day: “Students are introduced to the variety of careers at NSA, emphasizing the technical skills of the workforce and inviting the students to consider activities they like to do now, and how this may fit in to a future career.”

Math is hard (though American kids are getting better at it). So perhaps your kid could benefit from a little math help from the big, brotherly geeks at the NSA. Or maybe, like Will Hunting, they’ll think better of becoming a CryptoKid.

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

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