Updated 2 years ago
Ask yourself, can I live a life to the fullest like McAfee did?*
*without the bath salts and murder parts
Links
CNBC
New York Times
The Verge
Wikipedia
Update:
The Creepy Far-Right Plot to Bring John McAfee Back From the Dead
Story (from The Verge)
John McAfee, founder of the company behind McAfee Antivirus, has been found dead according to reports from Reuters, El Mundo, El País, and others. He was being held in a Barcelona prison, and the Catalan Department of Justice has stated that his death was likely caused by suicide. Lawyers for McAfee confirmed his death to Reuters and The New York Times, with one saying it was “the result of a cruel system that had no reason to keep this man in jail for so long.”
McAfee was being held in prison, pending extradition to the US, after being arrested in October 2020. He faced charges of tax evasion and had also been charged with securities fraud relating to an alleged cryptocurrency pump and dump scheme. Spanish courts had approved his extradition this morning with opportunity for appeal, according to Reuters and El Mundo.
McAfee’s story over the past decade has been headline-grabbing. He’s released a drug-fueled video in which he un-installs McAfee Antivirus, claimed to have made a device that blocked NSA surveillance, and run for president in 2016 and 2020. He’s also claimed to charge $105,000 to promote cryptocurrencies or initial coin offerings on his Twitter account.
In 2014, Intel rebranded the antivirus software that bore McAfee’s name, changing it to “Intel Security.” In response, McAfee told the BBC that he was grateful that “the worst software on the planet” was no longer associated with his name. McAfee later agreed to a settlement with Intel, saying that he wouldn’t use his name in connection to any cybersecurity products or services he worked on.
McAfee has a history of run-ins with law enforcement. He, his family, and members of his security forces were arrested by the Belize police in 2012, after drug and firearm charges. He went on the run later that year, after the Belize police declared that he was wanted for questioning in relation to the murder of his neighbor.
The story became one of the focuses of a 2016 Showtime documentary, which sought to prove that McAfee was involved not only in that murder, but other crimes as well. As recently as 2019, McAfee called the case against him “frivolous,” and refused to pay a $25 million judgement against him in a wrongful death suit. He also claimed that he had over $200 million in judgements against him, but that he could not pay any of them.
Some Quotes
“The ones who are crazy enough to think that they can change the world are the ones who do.
The gig economy is empowerment. This new business paradigm empowers individuals to better shape their own destiny and leverage their existing assets to their benefit.
Making money is easy. It is. The difficult thing in life is not making it, it’s keeping it.
Social engineering has become about 75% of an average hacker’s toolkit, and for the most successful hackers, it reaches 90% or more.
Any idiot can make money. Keeping money, very few can do.
Our mobile phones have become the greatest spy on the planet.
The most astonishing subset of the Deep Web is a collection of dark alleys called the Dark Web. The Dark Web is generally thought of as a collection of criminal elements intent on subverting the law, stealing our money, and possibly kidnapping our daughters.
In this age of communications that span both distance and time, the only tool we have that approximates a ‘whisper’ is encryption. When I cannot whisper in my wife’s ear or the ears of my business partners, and have to communicate electronically, then encryption is our tool to keep our secrets secret.
Governments are composed of human beings, and all of the frailties that humans possess are absorbed into these governments and become active within these governments. Hatred, anger, jealousy, fear, greed, distrust and the whole host of afflictions that humans must bear, lurk just beneath the surface of civility displayed by ‘government.’
Hackers rarely have full knowledge of the technology stack of a target.
I was one of the first practitioners of social engineering as a hacking technique, and today it is my only tool of use, aside from a smartphone – in a purely white hat sort of way. But if you don’t trust me, then ask any reasonably competent social engineer.
My most heartfelt thank you goes to Impact Future Media and Cartoon Monkey Studio. Their dedication to the truth is very uncommon in the world we live in today. I am now, and will always be, grateful to their organizations.
Let me tell you what the truth is… I have learned one thing in life: there is no such thing as bad press. There is not. That’s a fundamental truth. The more bad things said about you, the more power they give to you.
Jealousy, greed, fear. We’re all full of these things. But also love and compassion. If you saw a drowning baby, it wouldn’t matter if you were wearing a tuxedo on the way to your own wedding. You’d jump in to save him.
When a hacker gains access to any corporate data, the value of that data depends on which server, or sometimes a single person’s computer, that the hacker gains access to.
Private communication systems have been around since the beginning of human culture.
Limit use of shareware and public domain software to systems without fixed disks. If you do use them on fixed disks, allocate separate subdirectories… Public domain or shareware software should never be placed in the root directory.
I, perhaps wrongly, assume that people actually read articles that interest them rather than just headlines.
I’ve been called ‘paranoid,’ ‘schizophrenic,’ ‘the wild child of Silicon Valley.’
Steve Jobs was a friend and mentor whom I miss more than I can say.
My fragile connection with the world of polite society has, without a doubt, been severed.
My well-discussed ‘paranoia’ urges me to believe that some tiny segment of the NSA’s parsing algorithm is finely tuned to my voice.
Is Snowden a good man or a bad man? I have no clue and even less interest.
These ‘free’ applications ask for permission to read your emails, your text messages, listen to your phone calls, record video from your phone. Why else would someone spend millions developing an application which they then give away? Kind-hearted, maybe? Get real.
I think that it’s when we step out of the road, step outside the box, become our own person, and we walk fearlessly down paths other people wouldn’t look at, that true progress comes. And sometimes true beauty as well.
The FBI and our entire government has become a bureaucracy. Sick, tired, and old as far as technology is concerned. This has to change.
There’s not a single flashlight app that’s not spying on you right now.
Donald Trump is proud of the fact that he’s never written an e-mail.
Every corporation worth its salt is throwing money at Deep Web research, not least Google. The company that unlocks the mysteries of the Deep Web will obtain power of an enormous magnitude.
Hillary Clinton was asked if she wiped the disc she was using for her email; she said, ‘Do you mean with a damp cloth?’ This, to me, is frightening.
I trust and use RakEM for my private messages and calls. Other messengers collected metadata about who I messaged, when and where – RakEM does not collect metadata, encrypts local files, and uses the strongest end-to-end encryption around.
I was an altar boy. I could probably quote the Bible from beginning to end.
If operating in a network environment, do not place public domain or shareware programs in a common file-server directory that could be accessible to any other PC on the network.
When we do not understand something, a common reaction is to fear it. In government, this is the usual, and encouraged, reaction. The reaction to the gig economy has been no different, and this growing fear has unfortunately turned into a legislative bloodbath.
Libertarian principles are very simple, but you can’t violate any of them and still call yourself Libertarian.
Steve Jobs would have wanted his words to change not just technology but politics itself.
One who understands the relationships between the human heart and the human mind will always out-hack those who chase after an ever-changing technology.
The world chooses to think what the world thinks.
When individuals become angry with one another, an injury of some sort will likely occur. When governments become angry, entire civilisations are wiped out.
The most promising privacy thing is stupid phones. I’m dumping all my smart phones.
I would like to point to the extraordinary lengths the mainstream media will go to maintain a sensationalist story.
Belize is not ready for self-government.
I think that the world has largely ignored Belize and the political situation and the plight of its people because it’s one of the smallest countries and, in terms of the world economy, one of the least significant.
When you’re standing in line at the airport, and your shoes are off, your belt is off, and your personal belongings are being closely scrutinized, and you’re standing with your hands in the air, waiting to be patted down, do you feel protected? I don’t. I feel like I’m the enemy.
I’m a paranoid person. I really am.
People are afraid of their own lives. Shouldn’t your goal be to have a meaningful life? Unknown, mysterious, thrilling?
A hacker is someone who uses a combination of high-tech cybertools and social engineering to gain illicit access to someone else’s data.
We are losing privacy at an alarming rate – we have none left.
I have dual citizenship; I would be happy to go to England. I would be very happy to go to America.
Every newspaper on earth has called me a liar.
I simply would like to live comfortably day by day, fish, swim, enjoy my declining years.
Really, what the government is asking Apple to do is to make every individual who uses an iPhone susceptible to hacking by bad people, foreign governments, and anyone who wants.
Politicon should be applauded for recognizing the increasing impact of technology, not only on American social and economic systems but on the very structure of our system of politics.
Belize is so raw and so clear and so in-your-face. There’s an opportunity to see something about human nature that you can’t really see in a politer society, because the purpose of society is to mask ourselves from each other.
Corporate competition is fierce, viewed by many as economic warfare where all is fair. But politics… now, this is something unique.
There is no hope for my life if I am ever returned to Belize.
We as Americans have ripped off the world. We get to throw food away. It’s insane.
I am just a thorn in everybody’s side.
There is dissatisfaction in all of us. Some of us take out that dissatisfaction by attempting to ruin whatever you are attempting to do. This is a fact of life.
Belize is still a pirate haven and is run more or less along the lines established centuries ago by the likes of Captain Morgan, Blackbeard, and Captain Barrow.
The beauty of knowing yourself is nobody else has to.
I have the best habits in the world, and I cannot keep my phone secure.
An angry people cannot create anything that is not imbued with anger.
To say what your disguise is would be foolish.
The Deep Web contains shockingly valuable information. Can you imagine how cancer research would blossom if every researcher had instant access to every research paper done by every single university and research lab in the world?
I would describe myself as quite sane and lucid, which is why I’m still alive.
Do you think the Chinese think twice about hiring a hacker with a mohawk or a tattooed face? No.
Liability is being assessed against companies who inadvertently have shipped a virus to another company. Rather than risk the incredibly bad PR, these companies fork over.
I am looking at opening a school of social engineering. The McAfee School of Social Engineering has a nice ring to it. Beyond that, it is hard to say what life will bring my way.
You’ll see a movie about someone you hate or someone you love. Will you see a movie about grandma making apple pies? No, you won’t. Only if grandma has poisoned the neighbor or is suspected of poisoning the neighbor through her apple pies.
I think the thing that our government lacks – just about more than anything else – is technological competence. We have some of the greatest white-hat hackers in the world here in the U.S., but the government seems to be technologically illiterate.
The government can spy on people using their mobile phones while they’re with their wives and husbands.
America is in a state of somnolence. It’s an avoidance of paranoia through ignoring reality.
Dwight Eisenhower warned American citizens at the end of his presidency about the implications of the military-industrial complex and its influence over government. We have now gone well beyond any of the wildest imaginations that could have entered Eisenhower’s mind.
Success, for me, is being able to wake up in the morning and feel like a 12 year old.
As the economy goes south, petty theft begins. And then grand theft. And then muggings.
I had more money than I could spend in million lifetimes.
Living with one woman is horrific.
I would be very happy to go to America. America is where I was raised and that’s exactly what I want.
There are no secrets.
It’s very hard to keep an uncrackable encryption if you share it with the government.
Everyone knows that a federal job is a lifetime job, and for many in Congress, it seems they have a lifetime job, too.
The government generally is just too top-heavy.
Corporations understand the value of security because the leakage of their competitive information could be the end of the corporation.
Governments sometimes turn paranoid. And they fear things. And sometimes the thing they fear the most is the populace.
My relationship has never been good with the government.
I simply refuse to play by the rules.
I do not donate to any political party.
I am always interested in helping and growing new tech start-ups and ideas.
History told me that you just keep working, and it is easy to make more money.
We live in a very insecure world with a very insecure communications platform.
I don’t know much about technology anymore.
I gravitate to the world’s outcasts.
I don’t need friends.
I’m an entrepreneur. I always have been. I am curious, and I enjoy solving problems.
I feel as much British as I do American. There’s not much difference between our countries.
I have a huge underground following on the web.
I cannot conceive of how more than 1% of us could possibly survive a cyberwar.
I had disagreements with all my neighbors about my dogs. I had a disagreement with myself about my dogs. They were noisy.
I don’t do things I can’t win.
In America, we have bible-reading applications: every single one of those applications asks permission to turn on your microphone, your camera; it wants permission to read your e-mails and the right to send e-mails wherever it chooses.
I know many people within Anonymous; I was the keynote speaker at Defcon in Las Vegas and got a standing ovation.
There will be an electronic currency, and it will be universal, and we must accept that fact.
Marketing is the obverse of programming.
We don’t even know our friends’ phone numbers anymore.
I have started many companies now worth more than $100 million. So I know a little about business.
There are always losers when society evolves. In the free market, these losers are expected and encouraged to retrain and find new ways to survive and thrive.
I am not in any way a conspiracy theorist and have no time for such nonsense.
A simple social engineering hack might involve leaving a thumb drive on the pavement close to the driver’s door of a car.
Security is a human problem.
We are at war – undeclared and of such a subtle nature that few have noticed – but war nevertheless. It is a cyberwar on many fronts, in which it is difficult to identify who is friend and who is foe. I will predict now, as unintelligible as it may seem, that Anonymous will turn out to be more friend than foe.
I will not stop my blog.”
More Videos
Back to Memorial
