Intriguing Story of John McAfee
About John McAfee
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
John McAfee (born September 18, 1945) is a British-American computer programmer and founder of McAfee, Inc.
McAfee was born in the United Kingdom and raised in Salem, Virginia. He received his bachelor’s degree in mathematics from Roanoke College in 1967.
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Ventures
McAfee was employed as a programmer by NASA’s Institute for Space Studies in New York City from 1968 to 1970. From there he went to Univac as a software designer and later to Xerox as an operating system architect. In 1978 he joined Computer Sciences Corporation as a software consultant. Later, while employed by Lockheed in the 1980s, McAfee received a copy of the Pakistani Brain computer virus and began developing software to combat viruses.
In 1987 McAfee founded McAfee Associates, a computer anti-virus company. He was the first to distribute anti-virus software using the shareware business model. In 1989, he quit Lockheed and began working full-time at McAfee Associates, which he initially operated from his home in Santa Clara, California. The company was incorporated in Delaware in 1992, and McAfee resigned from the company in 1994. Two years after McAfee Associates went public, McAfee sold his remaining stake in the company. Network Associates was formed in 1997 as a merger of McAfee Associates and Network General. This company later became Network Associates, a name it retained for seven years until it was renamed McAfee. Now a subsidiary of Intel corporation, McAfee remains today as one of the largest anti-virus companies in the world.
Other business ventures that he founded included Tribal Voice, which developed one of the first instant messaging programs, PowWow. In 2000, John McAfee invested in and joined the board of directors of Zone Labs, makers of firewall software, prior to its acquisition by Check Point Software in 2003.
In August 2009, The New York Times reported that McAfee’s personal fortune had declined to $4 million from a peak of $100 million, the effect of the global financial crisis and recession on his investments.
Beginning in February 2010, McAfee started a new venture in the field of bacterial quorum sensing. His company QuorumEx has its headquarters in Belize and is working towards producing commercial all natural antibiotics based on anti-quorum sensing technology.
Personal life
McAfee teaches yoga and has written several books about yoga.
In a 2012 article in Mensa Bulletin, the magazine of American Mensa, he stated that being the developer of the first commercial anti-virus program has made him “the most popular hacking target”, adding “Hackers see hacking me as a badge of honor”. He added that for his own security he has other people buy his computer equipment for him, uses pseudonyms for setting up computers and logging in, and changes his IP address several times a day.
In 2012, when asked if he personally uses McAfee anti-virus he replied by saying “I take it off,” and that “It’s too annoying.”
As of January 2013, McAfee is living in Portland, Oregon, intending to work on an autobiography in graphic novel form.
Former cocaine baron “Boston” George Jung is rumored to be writing No Domain, McAfee’s official biography.
Legal Issues
On April 30, 2012, McAfee’s property in Orange Walk Town, Belize, was raided by the Gang Suppression Unit of the Belizean Police Department. McAfee was in bed with his girlfriend at that time who McAfee said was scared by the incident. A GSU press release stated that McAfee was arrested for unlicensed drug manufacturing and possession of an unlicensed weapon. He was released without charge. In 2012, Belize police spokesman Raphael Martinez confirmed that he was not convicted nor charged but only suspected.
On November 12, 2012, Belize police started a search for McAfee as a “person of interest” in connection to the murder of American expatriate Gregory Viant Faull. Faull was found dead of a gunshot wound on November 11, 2012, at his home on the island of Ambergris Caye, the largest island in Belize. Faull was a neighbor of McAfee. No one has yet been formally charged. In a November 2012 interview with Wired, McAfee said that he has always been afraid police would kill him and thus refused their routine questions; he has since been evading the Belizean authorities. Belize’s prime minister Dean Barrow called McAfee “extremely paranoid, even bonkers”. McAfee fled Belize when he was sought for questioning concerning the murder.
Vice accidentally gave away his location at a Guatemalan resort in early December 2012, when a photo taken by one of its journalists accompanying McAfee was posted with the Exif geolocation metadata still attached. He then appeared publicly in Guatemala City where he attempted to seek political asylum. On December 5, 2012, McAfee was arrested for illegally entering Guatemala. Shortly after being placed under arrest, a board to review McAfee’s plea for asylum was formed. The committee denied his asylum, so he was taken from his holding facility to a detention center in order to await deportation to Belize. On December 6, 2012, Reuters and ABC News reported that John McAfee had two minor heart attacks in a Guatemalan detention center and was hospitalized. His lawyer stated that McAfee had not suffered heart attacks, but he had instead suffered from high blood pressure and anxiety attacks. McAfee later stated that he faked the heart attack while being held in Guatemala to buy time for his attorney to file a series of appeals that ultimately prevented his deportation to Belize, hastening the government’s decision to send him back to the United States. On December 12, 2012, McAfee was released from detention in Guatemala and deported to the United States.
Links
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_McAfee
- http://www.whoismcafee.com/
- http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/12/ff-john-mcafees-last-stand/all/
- http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/11/john-mcafee-last-stand-ebook/
- http://www.wired.co.uk/magazine/archive/2013/02/features/dangerous
- http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=xsndNiCasw8#t=2918
- http://johnmcafeestory.com/tag/infowars-com/