Recycling might not be the first thing people think of when they hear about the National Security Agency, but the spy agency wants to change that. 
 
 The Fort Meade, Md., institution has a new pro-recycling mascot named “Dunk” that it’s using as part of an effort to get students in Maryland schools to cut down on their trash. 
 
 In a new eight-minute video released ahead of Wednesday's Earth Day, Dunk — a blue, anthropomorphized recycling bin — explained the NSA’s commitment to recycling. Then, it offered students a project of their own. 
 
 ADVERTISEMENT 
 
 “To keep as much material out of local landfills as possible, NSA has operated recycling programs for decades,” Dunk says in the video, noting that the agency recycles about 13 million pounds of garbage every year. 
 
 The video urges school students to perform a “waste audit” by analyzing trash to find how much can be recycled instead of sent to a landfill. Then, they should come up with ways to reduce the amount of trash, such as using reusable plastic bottles or lunch bags. 
 
 “When you see firsthand the trash that is generated in your school, we hope you’ll become more interested in reducing waste both at school and at home,” the mascot said. 
 
 “After all, you’re the future generation of this planet, so we need to keep it green for you and for all future generations.” 
 
 Dunk is not the only mascot the NSA has used in the past. 
 
 As part of the agency’s CryptoKids outreach — which seeks to get children interested in codebreaking, it has more than a half-dozen cartoon characters including Decipher Dog, Crypto Cat and Rosetta Stone — a language analyst fox. ||||| Hey there. This is Dunk. Dunk is a trash can taken from the stuff of nightmares and repurposed by the NSA to promote Earth Day. 
 
 The NSA is currently hosting a STEM Recycling Challenge in Maryland schools in an attempt encourage students to consider what happens to the junk they discard daily. Now, whatever else there is to say about the NSA (and boy, there is a lot) trying to get kids to recycle is fine. An admirable enough goal. But not this way. Not. This. Way. 
 
 Let's take a look at Dunk: 
 
 Ignore for a second the fact that Dunk is dressed like a cross between an inoffensive cartoon toddler and a dad who hates when sand touches his feet, and focus on his face. What expression is that? Casually disguised stomach trouble? Drinking orange juice after brushing your teeth? Barely concealed social anxiety? 
 
 Why are his eyebrows just raised bumps seemingly molded out of excess plastic? Who is Dunk's dentist? And most importantly: Why are Dunk's biceps so incredibly sculpted? 
 
 If, after all this, you need to hear Dunk's voice, you can watch him talk about the importance of recycling in the video below. ||||| Dudes and dudettes: You know what's totally radical? Reading your neighbors' e-mail! So don't you wanna be a junior National Security Agency deputy? 
 
 If so, the surveillance and cryptology crew at NSA has the right online companions for you: Cy and Cyndi, a pair of anthropomorphic snow leopards now kickin' it with the CryptoKids, the Puzzle Palace's team of cartoon animal hackers. Known as the CyberTwins and unveiled by NSA yesterday, Cy and Cyndi wear gaming headgear, talk into their hands-free mobile devices, and teach youths about proper online hygiene, all on the NSA website's kids page, which actually exists. 
 
 Arriving in time for (the second half of) National Cybersecurity Awareness Month, the CyberTwins have a backstory to appeal to military kids: Their mom is a government engineer, their dad is an Army computer scientist, and they "love to talk with other kids who love computers and cyber space as much as they do." 
 
 That fits them right in with the other CryptoKids – a goateed turtle named T-Top whose uncle works for a computer manufacturer, Sergeant Sam the eagle who joined the military out of high school – who guide real-live youth through online crypto-themed puzzles and brainteasers. (Only one thing's missing from the CryptoTwins' rollout: cybersecurity tips for the underage.) 
 
 All this is a reminder that the most informative element of any spy agency's website is its Kiddie Korner, where spycraft meets the schoolyard for an awkward, barely appropriate encounter. The CIA offers a world-explorer videogamestarring Carmen Sandiego–esque junior officer Ava Shoephone, a trenchcoated operative who throws out trivia questions from the agency's World Factbook. 
 
 The National Counterterrorism Center introduces you to "your NCTC friends," Becker the Eagle and Little Lady Liberty. And the FBI has games – represented by an icon of the old Nintendo cartridges – like Special Agent Undercover, in which grade-school kids disguise themselves with mustaches to fool people. 
 
 As Noah Shachtman wrote a couple of years ago, only the government knows how earnest or how absurd these sites are intended to be. They do, however, inculcate the message that a career in spycraft is totally extreme. "Cryptology is making and breaking codes. It’s so cool," NSA's kids page explains. "You might be part of the next generation of America’s codemakers and codebreakers." Then again, is a kid precocious enough to spend time on a surveillance and crypto agency's website really going to be impressed by a snow leopard with a BlueTooth in her ear? 
 
 Updated: The sleuths at Boing Boing have uncovered the CrytpoKids' true names: 
 
 Image: NSA 
 
 See Also: ||||| WikiLeaks has started to promote a subset of the documents retrieved from the Democratic National Convention (DNC) as “The DNC recordings”, offering the world 29 MP3 files retrieved from the DNC voice mail system. The Register's crack forensics team can reveal that one of the voice mails may be what experts refer to as “an ass call” and was probably made at a zoological garden. 
 
 The Register's labs team makes that assertion after listening to the first (MP3) of the voice mail files listed by WikiLeaks. We present that explosive transcript here: 
 
 Child: (inaudible) 
 
 Adult: Bring the elephants in, zookeeper. 
 
 Child: Bring in the elephant, zookeeper. 
 
 Adult: I want to see the elephants. 
 
 Child: I want to see the elephants. 
 
 Adult: Yeah. I love Daddy. 
 
 Child: (hesitant) I love Daddy. 
 
 Adult: That's real good. 
 
 After extensive analysis, The Register's forensics squad believes that the two people in the conversation are talking about actual elephants and not talking in code about the Republican Party's elephant logo. 
 
 Our analysis further suggests the call may have been filtered through denim, making it what's known in law enforcement circles as an “ass call”. For the non-technical among you, such calls occur when a mobile telecommunications device's interface is inadvertently activated while said device is located in its user's pants. The result of that unplanned interaction is transmission of content unplanned by users and often frustrating to recipients. 
 
 Our alternative hypothesis is that this voicemail is a fragment of a call in which a carer calls a parent or other relative to re-assure them of a child's well-being. Which surely proves just how corrupt American politics has become. 
 
 WikiLeaks is making much of the fact that one of the voicemails is from William Eacho, a former ambassador to Austria appointed by President Barack Obama, and asks for details of a soiree with the Commander In Chief. Eacho is known to have made and organised substantial donations to Obama's campaigns, a fact WikiLeaks believes justifies its release on the grounds that the voice mail's content reveals how networks of influence operate. 
 
 Like all of the voice mails released by WikiLeaks, including the ass call, the originating phone number is included in the MP3 file's metadata. Like many of the MP3s, this one features Eacho speaking his name the phone number on which he can be reached. 
 
 All are now on the record. 
 
 Elsewhere in the dump from the DNC, WikiLeaks revealed personal details of many small donors to the DNC. ®
– The NSA has revealed its mascot for Earth Day tomorrow, and though the fact that the agency has a recycling mascot is odd enough, Gizmodo reports it's "an anthropomorphized and oddly buff recycling bin named Dunk" that "breaks new ground creepiness-wise." The Verge, meanwhile, thinks he's the "stuff of nightmares." Dunk was created out of a partnership with Maryland schools to encourage students to limit what they throw away. The mascot also touts the NSA's recycling efforts in a lengthy video. Dunk joins the NSA's other cartoon characters, including Decipher Dog, Crypto Cat, and a language analyst fox named Rosetta Stone, the Hill reports. (Click for more creepy mascots.)