Spy Kids

Kate Greene of TechnologyReview.com writes:

Young detectives of yesteryear would idolize the Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, or Encyclopedia Brown. But for kids interested in solving a different kind of mystery - the making and breaking of codes and ciphers - role models have been few and far between. That’s understandable, since real-life code experts - those invaluable cryptographers who helped the Allies win the first and second world wars, laid the groundwork for the modern computer, and monitored Soviet communications during the Cold War - traditionally have kept very low profiles. Indeed, until the early 1980s, the hub of U.S. government cryptology, the National Security Agency, was sometimes known as “No Such Agency” or “Never Say Anything.”

Since 1982, though, when journalist James Bamford published The Puzzle Palace, a look inside the NSA, the agency has gradually shed its anonymity. And now it’s taken openness to a whole new level. With the latest version of “CryptoKids,” a startlingly upfront website that encourages young Americans to consider careers in cryptography and crypto-analysis, the NSA is deploying the tools of modern marketing to get its recruiting message out - including cartoon characters with trademarked names like Crypto Cat and Decipher Dog. The agency also boasts a cryptologic museum.

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[tags]code,cryptographer,cryptography,nsa,national security agency[/tags]