Four things to know about presidential hopeful John McAfee

Griffin Boyce griffin at cryptolab.net
Sat Sep 12 13:33:43 PDT 2015


McAfee/Cocaine 2016


Razer wrote:
> The Hill say he's a nutjob. I concur. Ate too many DMT-ridden plants or
> lizards somewhere .
> 
> "Security software pioneer and newly minted presidential candidate John
> McAfee has led an unusual life, to put it mildly.
> 
> He’s played Russian roulette in front of a reporter to prove a point,
> was once a fugitive from the law in Belize and, just last month, was
> arrested for an alleged gun violation and driving under the influence.
> 
> In keeping with his unconventional style, McAfee’s bid for the White
> House, announced this week, will be waged a candidate from his own
> “Cyber Party.”
> 
> "I have a huge underground following on the web," McAfee told CNN 
> Money.
> "I promise you I will win because I have the votes."
> 
> On the same day he announced he was running for president, TV network
> Spike announced they were planning to air a series next year that “will
> be centered around McAfee's first-person interviews and will reveal
> unanswered questions about his life ranging from drug-fueled college
> days in Virginia, to learning to battle computer viruses early in his
> career at Lockheed in the 1980's, to starting McAfee and Associates in
> 1987, to the 2012 murder investigation in Belize.”
> 
> Here are four know about McAfee as he reenters the national spotlight.
> 
> He built fortune on antivirus software, then lost it
> 
> McAfee made his millions at the anti-virus company that bore his name.
> He ultimately cashed out, selling his stake in the firm after taking it
> public.
> 
> But his fortune took a hit during the 2008 recession. He was worth 
> about
> $100 million before the financial crisis, and less than $10 million
> after. He said that his losses were exacerbated because much of his
> money was tied up in real estate.
> 
> “My father always said, 'Real estate, you can't lose in real estate' 
> ...
> you know, oddly enough you can,” he told ABC News at the time.
> 
> He sold many of his assets, including houses in Hawaii, Colorado and 
> New
> Mexico and moved to Belize to develop “natural” antibiotics.
> 
> McAfee Associates, the company he founded, was bought by Intel in 2010.
> They dropped his name from the brand in 2014.
> 
> The Russian roulette story
> 
> While McAfee was in Belize, a Wired magazine writer visited his 
> compound
> to report a profile. McAfee pulled out a gun during a conversation with
> the writer about the Belizean authorities’ interest in his activities.
> 
> McAfee put one bullet in the chamber and placed the gun to his head,
> according to the profile. “Maybe what happened didn’t actually happen.
> Can I do a demonstration?” he asked the writer, who wrote that he tried
> to deescalate the situation.
> 
> McAfee pulled the trigger repeatedly. Nothing happened.
> 
> “I can do this all day long. I can do this a thousand times. Ten
> thousand times. Nothing will ever happen,” he said. “Why? Because you
> have missed something. You are operating on an assumption about reality
> that is wrong.”
> 
> The fugitive
> 
> In 2012, authorities in Belize investigating the murder of McAfee’s
> neighbor, Gregory Faull, were looking to speak with McAfee. He and the
> man had had disputes over McAfee’s dogs and the security guards that
> watched his property. McAfee told authorities that his dogs had been
> poisoned two days before Faull died.
> 
> McAfee maintained his innocence and fled the authorities. He said he
> thought he would not get a fair hearing in the country. “Things do not
> operate here as they do in the States,” he said. “We are living in a
> near dictatorship where the legal system is subservient to the 
> cabinet."
> 
> His flight from Belize made national headlines and media outlet Vice 
> was
> briefly embroiled in a controversy when it appeared as though they had
> leaked McAfee’s location accidentally. But after a month on the lam, he
> ended up in the capital city of Guatemala.
> 
> “I like Guatemala. I think the legal system in Guatemala is superior to
> the legal system in Belize," he told CNN at the time. "Guatemala is
> close, it is beautiful and most importantly, I enjoy the company of
> Guatemalans.”
> 
> DUI arrest
> 
> After a period of relative quiet, McAfee surfaced again when he was
> arrested earlier this year for a gun possession violation and a DUI in
> Tennessee. He claimed that while he was impaired, he hadn’t been
> drinking alcohol. Instead, he said that a new prescription for Xanax 
> had
> impaired his driving.
> 
> "Never taken them before,” he told CNBC. “And in fact I was impaired, I
> must admit."
> 
> He has also been running a company called Future Tense Central. It 
> backs
> a range of products and services, one of which is called Autonomous
> Armor. The website for the forthcoming product lists several of 
> McAfee’s
> accomplishments, before offering a coda.
> 
> “Billions of dollars and decades later,” it says. “McAfee is back and 
> at
> it again.”
> 
> http://thehill.com/policy/technology/253454-four-things-to-know-about-presidential-hopeful-john-mcafee#

-- 
“Intelligence without ambition is a bird without wings.”
― Salvador Dalí



More information about the cypherpunks mailing list