Miss Teen USA to promote counter-surveillance software at RSA Conference

Although some of the faces you might expect to see at the RSA Conference will be missing, there will be one that you might not expect to see…Miss Teen USA Cassidy Wolf.

Numerous security and privacy experts are boycotting the 2014 RSA Conference in San Francisco, despite the RSA denying it had a secret $10 million contract with the NSA to keep a flawed encryption standard as the default, but Miss Teen USA will be there to help to support SnoopWall.

While there are different ways to “wake up” and become acutely aware of online security and privacy issues, for Wolf it unfortunately took becoming a victim of a sextortionist. When the teen beauty queen was just a normal California girl in high school, a jerk used a remote administration tool (RAT) to snap nude photos of her via her laptop webcam. The hacker then emailed her about the nude photos and tried to extort her. She said, “I wasn’t aware that somebody was watching me (on my webcam).The light (on the camera) didn’t even go on, so I had no idea.”

Wolf went to the feds, and the FBI later caught the perp, but she wants to utilize her Miss Teen USA platform to raise awareness about cybercrime and potentially help prevent others from being victimized too. That brings us back to Wolf’s association with SnoopWall, which makes counter-surveillance software and claims to be the “world’s first counterveillance security software company.”

Wolf stated:

“I feel as though this unfortunate tragedy was supposed to happen to me so I can use my voice to help stop this from happening to other people. Unless we take important steps to protect ourselves, Americans of all ages are at risk for privacy violations. As SnoopWall strongly shares my mission to educate the public about online privacy, I’m happy to support and join them at the RSA Conference to call attention to this growing issue.”

Prior to the RSA Conference, Miss Teen USA and SnoopWall created an infographic with “10 tips to reclaim your privacy and keep out the cyber snoops.” The teen beauty queen will be at SnoopWall’s booth on Feb. 26 between 11 AM – 6 PM to sign autographs and pose in photos.

Promoting security and privacy awareness is important because once something is online, there’s no control of the info and no erasing all traces of it. For example, when cops asked former Miss Teen Delaware for her social security and phone number, she allegedly didn’t know the answer and told the cops, “Google me.” Why say something like that? She reportedly resigned last year after a porn video showed up online and she admitted going into porn for the money.

As another example, Gawker recently claimed that after another beauty queen runner-up porn video surfaced online, the Miss Teen USA organization erased all record of 2012 Miss Colorado Teen USA runner-up from its site. But that does nothing to erase the porn with a title referencing the beauty pageant.

While no app can help a person who purposefully stars in amateur porn videos, SnoopWall claimed it “solved” the Android privacy issue. According to the company, the counterveillance software “helps prevent cyber-intrusion, unauthorized spying, snooping and stealing personal and/or corporate information” by “detecting and blocking remote control, spying and eavesdropping through attempted intrusions into cameras, webcams, microphones, GPS, USB, other ports of entry on computers, smartphones, tablets, and other mobile devices.” Some Android reviews claim the app does a great job of stopping privacy threats, while others claim it stops threats so completely that the camera and text messaging are blocked from functioning. If you are so inclined, you can sign up to beta test SnoopWall for Windows.

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