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24 June 2022 08:50 24 Jun 2022 08:50 | Share
The creator of McAfee antivirus, John McAfee, has died. He was found hanged in a Spanish prison cell where he was awaiting extradition to the United States on tax evasion charges. He faced imprisonment for up to 30 years. The cause of death has not been established - it could have been suicide, but McAfee himself has repeatedly stated that he would never commit suicide. In addition, three years before his death they tried to kill him by poisoning.
John McAfee: man and antivirus
McAfee was born in the picturesque Forest of Dean, British county of Gloucestershire, in the year after the Second World War. Soon the family moved to the USA, Virginia. His father, who worked as a surveyor, suffered from alcoholism. John was fifteen years old when his father committed suicide. In many interviews, McAfee said that he wakes up every morning with this fact.
“If you remember the sixties, you weren’t there,” says an old American saying. Let's leave behind the scenes how John McAfee spent the “summer of love” with “Maria and Juana.” In the late sixties, McAfee works for a punch card encoding company. Here he learns the basics of programming. At the Missouri Pacific Railroad, he uses the latest IBM mainframe to set train schedules while using heavy psychedelics. I had to quit to keep the trains from derailing.
McAfee moved to Silicon Valley in the early seventies. Works as a programmer in one of the NASA laboratories, a software designer at UNIVAC, an operating systems architect at Xerox, a software consultant at Computer Sciences Corporation and Booz Allen Hamilton. McAfee uses traditional Scotch whiskey and the increasingly popular cocaine as doping.
The eighties, the beginning of the information era. John McAfee is already thirty-five, and he has decided to quit drugs. According to legend, while working at the aerospace company Lockheed, our hero becomes acquainted with the first computer virus for MS-DOS - Brain, developed by brothers Amjad and Basit Alvi from Pakistan. The program was supposed to punish local pirates who steal software from their company. Unexpectedly for everyone, Brain went beyond the borders of Pakistan, and infections began all over the world. In the summer of 1987, eighteen thousand computers caught the virus in the United States alone.
I'm good at reading people. Why do graffiti appear on walls? People like to ruin things. There will always be hackers.
This inspired McAfee to open an antivirus company, McAfee Associates. Distributing software using the shareware model is also his idea. By the end of the eighties, the company, originally based in his own home, was producing McAfee five million forever dead presidents a year. His antivirus programs are used by the world's largest enterprises, but his company is still not one of them. In 1992, he carried out his first large-scale PR campaign. With the Michelangelo virus threatening all progressive humanity, McAfee is pumping up no worse than Wang with the apocalypse.
On March 6th, up to five million computers could be destroyed by the Michelangelo virus!
All the world's media quoted John McAfee, tension grew every day, but the promised “bomb” never exploded.
Talent with bad tendencies
He was born in Scotland, the son of an English mother and a US Army soldier serving in the United Kingdom. Soon the family moved overseas.
Despite the fact that John's father turned out to be a chronic alcoholic who died early, he himself managed to receive a bachelor's degree in mathematics from one of the private colleges in Virginia in 1967.
His father's genes led to the fact that the talented guy began to drink alcohol and then drugs early. Despite this, he was hired as a programmer in one of NASA's divisions. In general, his biography of that time is unique - he was willingly hired by leading companies in the United States, everywhere he showed high professionalism, but then drunkenness and drug use led to another dismissal.
WWW
Twenty years later, Sophos employees remember what it was like.
The only competitor of John McAfee's company in the American market was Peter Norton Computing (acquired by Symantec in 1990), which then offered non-commercial products. McAfee Associates successfully goes public and becomes a multi-billion dollar business. Two years later, McAfee sells his shares for one hundred million dollars, finishing his first big game in style.
As a result of many mergers and acquisitions, McAfee is gaining momentum. In 2010, the food chain reaches such a shark as Intel: after lengthy negotiations, it buys McAfee shares for $7.68 billion. By that time, McAfee was already the second most profitable antivirus company in the world and occupied 7% of the global market. Lawyers for the new Intel subsidiary are even trying to legally prohibit John McAfee from using his own surname as a brand. As a result, the parties came to an amicable agreement, according to which the ban concerns only the area of information security.
Meanwhile, for the vast majority of users, McAfee causes a strong association with an annoying program, which is installed by default with the ten thousandth update of the Adobe Flash Player browser plug-in. McAfee is tired of letters with curses, especially since he has had nothing to do with the product for more than twenty years. The answer was the wonderful video “How to remove McAfee antivirus.” Be sure to check it out if you haven't seen it yet!
Programming
As a young man, McAfee honed his programming skills at various companies, including NASA, General Electric, Siemens, Univac and Xerox. His experience in software design led him to create his own team, McAfee Associates, which began developing anti-virus software.
As a result, McAfee turned into the largest manufacturer of antivirus software and was sold to Intel Corporation for $7 billion. By that time, its creator had changed his vector of interests and started a project to produce a new class of antibiotics, but it failed.
American media wrote that McAfee’s multimillion-dollar fortune was melting before our eyes, but he continued to do business, investing in IT projects and simultaneously spending it on purchasing planes, yachts, building numerous mansions and replenishing his collection of works of art.
Programmer John McAfee in his youth / ABC News
In 2016, John founded a holding company, MGT Capital Investments, but soon switched to cryptocurrencies. He promoted bitcoin through social media and his own advertising campaign, and became a prominent figure on the cryptocurrency exchange as he influenced price increases through provocative blog posts.
In 2022, US authorities sounded the alarm because they established that McAfee evaded paying taxes by registering millions in income through front men. In addition, the businessman simply hid the sources from which considerable funds came to him. For example, advertising on social networks, consultations on mining and the sale of rights to film the biography did not give the American treasury a single cent.
In 2022, at the request of US authorities, McAfee, who was in Spain, was arrested.
Yoga and aerial tracking
After selling the company, John McAfee writes books about yoga and does aerial tracking. McAfee is the author of a whole movement of so-called relational yoga (this is more a philosophical teaching than a technique, but not at all about databases, as you might think). You can purchase Gurus training DVDs on Amazon.
In the states of Arizona and New Mexico, a millionaire is buying up sixty hectares of land for runways, gas stations and a flight school. Creates an informal association “Heavenly Gypsies”. You can read more about aero tracking in the Popular Mechanics article. Let me just say that this is synonymous with the words “adrenaline” and “drive”, and the videos of aero trackers fit perfectly on Gogol Bordello.
There was a week when we organized “rides” for two hundred people, including one 86-year-old granny. It was the happiest day of her life!
"Steep dive" ended tragically. McAfee's 22-year-old nephew, Joel Bietow, crashed while flying a motorized hang glider on the rocks of Death Canyon. Along with him, 61-year-old passenger Robert Gilson died, whose family subsequently filed a lawsuit for five million dollars due to the fact that McAfee allowed the insufficiently experienced Bito to fly. Robert Gilson was an Air Force veteran who, shortly before joining the Sky Gypsies, was seriously ill with meningitis and even fell into a coma.
Scandals
John McAfee's checkered life is worth making a movie about. The screenwriters don’t even have to invent anything, since the hero took full care that the viewer would not get bored.
At the end of the first decade of the 2000s, being the owner of a multimillion-dollar fortune, a world-famous programmer suddenly retired from prying eyes to Belize, a third-world banana republic. There he lived like a king: he acquired weapons and his own police force, started a harem of young concubines and indulged in yogic practices and testing synthetic drugs.
John McAfee with girls / CBS News
Paradise life ended in 2012, when McAfee’s neighbor, with whom the businessman regularly had conflicts, was found dead. As a result, John left Belize, changing his appearance, and tried to find refuge in Guatemala, but from there he was extradited to the United States.
At home, the programmer was cleared of all charges and suspicions, but he periodically experienced problems with the law. For example, he was arrested for drunk driving and repeatedly raised questions about the legality of his activities. It was established that McAfee blackmails cryptocurrency startups, threatening to destroy their business with negative tweets.
John also did not stop dabbling in weapons: in 2022, he was imprisoned for 4 days in the Dominican Republic, suspected of storing ammunition. McAfee willingly maintained the image of a bad guy and schizophrenic on social networks, where, at the age of 70, he posted provocative photos and videos.
INFO
PowWow was an innovative product in many ways: it supported VoIP telephony, group chats, and the protocols of the then popular AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) and MSN Messenger.
A former programmer and millionaire sells off his assets and leaves for Central America with the ambitious idea of a laboratory for the production of natural antibiotics, QuorumEx. It was based on a world-class scientific discovery - the results of a study by microbiologists Greenberg and Basler on “quorum sensing” in bacteria. The project was not implemented.
In general, everything that happened in Belize, it seems, will remain in Belize. As Sherlock Holmes would say, "an extremely complicated story." There are several versions of the development of events: the editor of Wired magazine, the colorful story hunter Joshua Davis, who wrote the biography of McAfee John McAfee's Last Stand, the government and officials of the “pirate” Belize, and McAfee himself.
It would be unnecessary to compare versions and look for the truth, so let’s go through the chronology of events that are known for certain.
- On April 30, 2012, McAfee was arrested in Orange Walk by the Belize Police Special Organized Crime Unit on charges of manufacturing pharmaceuticals without a license and possessing an unregistered weapon. The charges were completely dropped within hours. "Hacker" wrote about this.
- On November 12, 2012, Belize police began searching for McAfee in connection with the murder of his neighbor, retired Florida engineer Gregory Vaent Fall.
- Fall was found dead of a gunshot wound to the head on November 11, 2012, at his home on Ambergris Key. The police, who arrived on call from the housekeeper, did not find any traces of a break-in. A laptop and iPhone were missing from personal belongings. The victim was arrested several times in the United States for domestic violence. No one was ever formally charged.
Reporter Joshua Davis, who stayed at McAfee's villa for a long time, wrote that McAfee surrounded himself with a crowd of armed thugs, a harem of prostitutes and finally lost touch with reality from constant drug use. The consequence of this was a severe form of paranoia.
McAfee did have armed bodyguards, a pack of fighting dogs (John always loved doggies), and local young women constantly lived in the villa. John called communication with them a “social experiment” and, upon returning to the United States, issued American visas to almost all of them.
Social experiment
John McAfee himself believed that the killer came for him, but he mixed up the houses, and the Belizean police want to take revenge on him. McAfee started a personal blog in which he talked about how he fought against local corrupt authorities, organizing an entire spy network for this.
Prime Minister of Belize Dean Barrow, commenting on the situation, called McAfee crazy and paranoid.
Murder or suicide
The exact circumstances of John McAfee's death had not been established at the time of publication of the material. However, there are several points indicating that it was not the result of suicide. Back in November 2022, the founder of McAfee posted a message on Twitter that under no circumstances was he going to take his own life.
McAfee was sure his life was in danger
In this publication, McAfee warned everyone that he was allegedly being hunted by “top officials” in the United States. He also got a tattoo on his right arm that read “whaked.”
On October 15, 2022, a week after his arrest, McAfee posted another tweet in which he stated that he was not going to commit suicide. “Know that if I hang myself like Epstein, it won’t be my fault,” McAfee wrote at the time.
McAfee's second statement that he could be killed
The publication by the founder of McAfee mentioned billionaire Jeffrey Epstein, who was accused of human trafficking and a number of other crimes. The investigation against him lasted 14 years. Epstein hanged himself in his cell in early August 2022, without waiting for trial and sentence.
Escape to Guatemala
McAfee faces a serious threat of going to prison in Belize. The businessman announced a reward of 25 thousand dollars to anyone who knows the name of the real killer Gregory Fall, changed his appearance and went on the run. He noticed long ago that when it rains, local border guards do not stop anyone for inspection, waiting out the bad weather in their cars.
To cross the border between Belize and Guatemala, the day was chosen when weather forecasters promised rain with a hundred percent probability. There were other remarkable details in this story: a couple of hours before McAfee moved across the border in the rain, his double tried to do the same thing - obviously unsuccessfully, so that he was caught and the police lowered their vigilance. “Hacker” also wrote about this story.
A few weeks later, John McAfee was arrested in Guatemala. He invited acquaintances from Vice.com to visit his secret hideout. By mistake (or was that the plan?) they published a photo on their website from an iPhone, which by default saved GPS coordinates in the metadata.
McAfee later wrote on his blog that he had intentionally faked XIF, but then deleted the page. One way or another, the Guatemalan government refused to grant McAfee political asylum, and the Belizean authorities did not put the fugitive on the international wanted list. A week later, due to heart problems, the suspect was extradited to the United States and found to be safe.
The latest news about the investigation dates back to 2016: “Belize police and the FBI summoned McAfee's ex-girlfriend Amy Herbert Emshwiller for questioning. McAfee himself still denies his involvement in the crime, but is ready to testify. Just not in Belize.”
How the creator of an antivirus ended up in a Spanish prison
John McAfee was detained at Barcelona airport in early October 2022 at the request of the US Department of Justice. He wanted to fly to Istanbul (Türkiye). Charges were brought against him for tax evasion, cryptocurrency fraud, and money laundering.
His indictment included 10 counts, some of which relate to registering property in the name of other people and conducting transactions through bank accounts under false names.
In mid-June, John McAfee testified in the Spanish National Court. He completely denied all the charges brought against him by the US Department of Justice. McAfee added that they were all allegedly political in nature, without specifying what exactly he meant by this.
On June 23, 2022, hours before John McAfee's death, a Spanish court approved his extradition to the United States. The McAfee founder's body was discovered hours before he was deported from Spain.
People's candidate
In 2013, John McAfee married Janice Jason, a prostitute from Florida. The newlyweds moved from Portland, Oregon to Lexington, Tennessee. In September 2015, McAfee decided to engage in party building and announced the future “Cyber Party” on his YouTube channel.
A little later, McAfee rightly decides that it will be much easier to run for president from the Libertarian Party, the third political force in the country. John speaks at the Libertarian National Convention with his election program and participates in the final televised debates in March. In the final primaries, McAfee took third place and won the states of Montana and New Hampshire.
Note that John McAfee never changed his political views and always positioned himself as a libertarian.
How will we remember John McAfee?
That's when John McAfee finally played with all the facets of extravagance, unleashing his demons. He destroyed dozens of motorcycles, ATVs and other expensive motor vehicles, smashing and breaking them in pursuit of adrenaline. He himself remained unharmed. In parallel with racing, he balanced his emotional state by practicing yoga, about which he even wrote and published a book, and injected himself with testosterone injections into the gluteal muscle once every two weeks. Thus, the outrageous programmer tried to slow down the aging process.
In 2002, John McAfee was consumed by a new extreme hobby. He learned about the existence of trikes - ultra-light aircraft, after reading an article about this miracle of technology in one of the magazines one morning. Without delay, he went to Arizona, USA, where a flight school was located and there was an opportunity to learn how to fly a flying vehicle. Having mastered it, McAfee began promoting trike flying as a new national pastime. To do this, he bought land in the New Mexico desert, built an airfield with a training base there, and began to welcome extreme sports enthusiasts who were also interested in this type of leisure. The commune was called "Heavenly Gypsies".
In addition, with the proceeds from the sale of McAfee
Associates
, John bought a fleet of airplanes and vintage cars, built a dozen mansions, filling them with art objects. At some point, McAfee acquired a real harem, consisting of seven concubines. According to the controversial businessman, seven girls caused him less problems and stress than a traditional marriage. By the way, McAfee claimed to be the father of 47 children...
McAfee and iPhone
As part of his presidential campaign, John McAfee said on Russia Today (where he is a frequent guest) that he and his team are ready to help the FBI hack the iPhone 5c smartphone of a terrorist from San Bernardino free of charge.
A week later, McAfee admitted that he lied, but with good intentions: “I knew that by doing this I would attract a shitload of public attention, which is what happened. That video on my YouTube account already has 700 thousand views. My goal was to draw the attention of Americans to the problem of the FBI, which is trying to fool the American public. How was I supposed to do this, just state it outright? Nobody would listen to such nonsense. So I came up with something sensational."
A similar situation was repeated with McAfee’s statement about a vulnerability in the WhatsApp messenger.
The creator of McAfee died in prison. He warned that the US authorities want to “eliminate” him
John McAfee tweeted that if they announce his suicide, you shouldn't believe it. The same thing happened to his friend, billionaire Jeffrey Epstein.
World-famous businessman John McAfee, founder of the McAfee company (developed anti-virus software of the same name), was found dead in a cell at Brians prison in Barcelona, writes the Spanish newspaper El Pais.
Police sources say the 75-year-old inmate's death is being ruled a suicide as preliminary forensic reports show no evidence of possible violence.
McAfee's lawyer, Javier Villalba, presented the same version to reporters. He said the businessman “could no longer stand” being in prison and that what happened should be blamed on “the cruelty of the system, which really had no reason to keep McAfee behind bars for so long.”
However, there are circumstances in this case that raise serious doubts.
John McAfee (center). Photo: YouTube
McAfee was one of the friends of tycoon Jeffrey Epstein, accused of sex trafficking - he was also found dead in a maximum security prison cell, and his death, according to the results of a forensic examination, was also written off as a suicide.
In mid-October 2022, already behind bars in Barcelona, McAfee wrote on Twitter: “I have friends. The food is good. Everything is fine. Please know that if I give up, Epstein-style, it will not be my decision.”
McAfee loved to show off the attributes of a beautiful life on camera.
In early October 2022, McAfee was detained at Barcelona's El Prat airport, where he had arrived from Germany on a private flight and from where he was planning to depart for Istanbul. They identified him from a photo that he imprudently posted on Twitter.
He was charged with tax evasion and was awaiting extradition to the United States, at whose request he was arrested. Interpol included him on the "red" list of most wanted criminals.
Detention of McAfee in Barcelona. Photo: YouTube
The American Themis believes that the businessman traded cryptocurrency and did not pay millions of dollars in taxes on the profits received to the treasury. According to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), McAfee used his personal Twitter account to give his followers advice on buying and selling cryptocurrencies without informing them that he was making a profit from it - a total of, according to auditors, about 19.5 million euros.
In the United States, McAfee would likely spend the rest of his life behind bars. There he was accused of tax evasion in 2014, 2015, 2016, 2022 and 2022. In addition, American tax officials believe that he hid from the state income from the publication of his biography and registered large purchases (for example, a yacht) in the name of third parties.
John McAfee's yacht. Photo: YouTube
The businessman’s lawyer tried to prove that he was being persecuted for “political, ideological or similar reasons,” but the judge of the National Court in Barcelona, Jose de la Mata, did not see such pitfalls in McAfee’s case and decided to grant the US request for extradition. “His position in the social, economic and any other sphere referred to by the defense does not give him immunity since he is subject to the laws in the same way as any other citizen,” the judge ruled.
In recent years, McAfee has repeatedly claimed that there was an assassination plot against him. “They want to do away with me,” he said. There was always controversy surrounding his figure: he looked more like a showman than a traditional businessman.
In an interview with American media, John said that at the university he focused on studying mathematics, and then decided to devote himself to modern technologies, but he himself did not notice how he became addicted to drugs.
Once McAfee made a video with his girls, showing his wild lifestyle. It even went viral
He worked in New York, London, Los Angeles and Cincinnati, and spent a year in Mexico, driving a truck around the country, selling jewelry and drugs - until he "landed" in Silicon Valley.
His company McAfee, created, as he himself liked to say, “on his knees,” was sold to the giant Intel in 2010 for almost 6 billion euros, and McAfee, as they say, has since begun a completely different life. However, very strange episodes happened in it too.
For example, in 2012 in Belize, where a businessman lived surrounded by security, dogs and young attractive ladies, his neighbor died - he was found shot in the head, and when the police wanted to take testimony from McAfee on this matter, he simply ran away.
On Twitter, John McAfee wrote about himself that he loves women, adventures and secrets
He was then stopped by traffic police, and the interrogation still took place. Subsequently, John stated that he was sure that the conversation about the neighbor was just an excuse to “shut him down.” He even made a very bold assumption that the neighbor could have been killed on purpose in order to “get” to him.
Paranoid remarks have appeared in McAfee's interviews and online accounts since 2011. He claimed that he “doesn’t feel safe” because the American authorities are allegedly prowling around and want to “charge” him with some crime or even “destroy” him. John seemed to be seriously convinced that the US government was conspiring against him.
He was arrested several times. In 2022, the businessman was taken into custody in the Dominican Republic, where he arrived on his yacht - and weapons, ammunition and undeclared cash were found on board.
Finds on McAfee's yacht. Photo: Dominican Republic Police
McAfee's lawyer said at the time that his client was released after checking that there were no criminal cases against him and that there were no international arrest warrants or extradition requests. The weapons and ammunition were confiscated, and John’s testimony was not even taken.
McAfee, whose office is located in San Jose, America, is one of the leading players in the global market for services and developments in the field of cybersecurity and anti-virus protection. Her projects include virtual private network (VPN) Safe Connect, TunnelBear and WebAdvisor.
In the 2020 financial year, the company's net profit amounted to $2.9 billion, exceeding the previous figure by 10%. McAfee's value on the stock market in 2022 increased by 71%, and capitalization reached $12,210 million - “thanks” to the coronavirus pandemic, against the backdrop of which the demand for cyber technologies has sharply increased and continues to increase.
Olga Lazareva
McAfee and cryptocurrencies
The presidential election in the United States was remembered not only for the unexpected victory of Donald Trump, but also for the best result in history of a candidate from the Libertarian Party - Gary Johnson received 3.3% of the vote.
John McAfee serves as chief executive of MGT Capital Investments. This mysterious investment group was not just weaving grapevines. Some of her areas of interest are: mobile gaming, fantasy sports, medicine, cybersecurity, Bitcoin mining. However, in August 2017, McAfee already changed his position to chief cybersecurity consultant, and in February he completely left MGT by agreement with investors.
Meanwhile, McAfee's Twitter is as active as the American President's Twitter. 825 thousand subscribers follow not only the crazy reality show of the McAfee family, but also the recommendations of the “cybersecurity legend” (as John likes to call himself) on investing in cryptocurrencies and ICOs. Because of this, scandals regularly break out. The latter is associated with the Pink Taxi ICO. McAfee even apologized for the developers who completely copied the project of the A2B startup from Lithuania. The promotion is carried out by McAfee Crypto Team, the ICO marketing bureau “McAfee, wife and friends.” According to recent reports, John charges five hundred thousand dollars per tweet.
They say I sold out because I use my tweets for promotion, but out of the last two hundred ICOs, we rejected 195 and selected five. I only promote what I believe in.
Due to increased demand for McAfee Crypto Team's services, it was necessary to introduce a registration fee of $750.
Previously, McAfee hosted the “Coin of the Day” column, in which every day he described the merits of a relatively unknown cryptocurrency, after which its rate rapidly decreased. After accusations of pump-and-dump games, John switched to a weekly format, and then completely abandoned the column, under which trading bots had already begun to write.
On New Year's Eve, McAfee's Twitter was hacked by hackers and within a few minutes they gave recommendations for the purchase of four coins: Basic Attention Token (BAT), Nxt (NXT), Siacoin (SC) and Patientory (PTOY). All coins experienced short-term lightning growth, and then sharply dropped below their usual trading levels.
Carier start
McAfee's first official job was with a company that encoded punched card systems in the late 60s.
This taught him the basics of early computing. Using this information, he got a job with the Missouri Pacific Railroad , where he helped the company use IBM's to calibrate train schedules.
In the 1970s, John decides to change jobs and moves to Silicon Valley (California). He has worked for various technology companies (including NASA's ).
In the 1980s, McAfee worked for Lockheed . At that time, computers were still relatively new inventions. In 1986, the first computer virus .
John immediately obtained a copy of the " Brain " computer virus and began developing software to combat them.
In 1987, John founded McAfee Associates, a computer antivirus company. The company was incorporated in Delaware in 1992, and John left the company in 1994. Two years after McAfee Associates went public, McAfee sold its remaining stake in the company.
Network Associates was formed in 1997 from the merger of McAfee Associates and Network General. The company name Network Associates was retained for seven years before being renamed McAfee, Inc.
In August 2010, Intel purchased McAfee, keeping the company's branding (name) until January 2014, when it announced that McAfee-related products would be marketed as " Intel Security ".
John expressed his pleasure at the name change, saying, "I am now eternally grateful to Intel for freeing me from this terrible association with the worst software on the planet." The division was spun off from Intel in April 2022 as McAfee LLC, a joint venture between TPG Capital and Intel.
Please note that McAfee, after completely selling all shares of McAfee Associates, earned about $100 million.
Businesses after McAfee
Other business ventures founded by John include Tribal Voice , which developed one of the first instant messaging programs, PowWow. In 2000, he acquired and joined the board of directors of Zone Labs , a firewall software manufacturer, prior to its acquisition by Check Point Software in 2003.
In August 2009, The New York Times reported that McAfee's personal wealth had fallen to $4 million from a peak of $100 million , a consequence of the 2007–08 financial crisis.
In 2009, McAfee was interviewed in Belize for CNBC's "Decade of the Bubble", which reported that he had invested in and/or built many mansions in the US that were not sold when the 2007 global recession began. The report also discussed his desire to produce plants for possible medicinal use on his land in Belize.
In February 2010, McAfee founded QuorumEx , a company headquartered in Belize that produced commercial natural antibiotics.
In June 2013, McAfee uploaded the video "How to Uninstall McAfee Antivirus" to his YouTube . In the video, John criticized the McAfee antivirus program while snorting a white powder. The video has received more than 9 million views. McAfee told Reuters he made the video to poke fun at negative media coverage of him. Spokesperson for McAfee Inc. called the video's claims "ridiculous."
Also in 2013, John founded a company called Future Tense Central , which aimed to produce a secure computer network device called D-Central .
In February 2014, John announced Cognizant , a smartphone application that displays information about the permissions of other installed applications. In April 2014, Cognizant was renamed DCentral 1 , and its Android version was released for free on Google Play.
In January 2016, he became chief evangelist for security startup Everykey .
In May 2016, McAfee was appointed chief executive officer and CEO of MGT Capital Investments, a technology holding company. The company initially said it would rename itself John McAfee Global Technologies , although this plan was abandoned due to a dispute with Intel over the rights to the "McAfee" name. McAfee's name was changed to MGT.
Shortly after joining MGT, John claimed that he and his team exploited a vulnerability in the Android operating system that allowed him to read encrypted messages from WhatsApp.
Gizmodo investigated the claims and reported that John sent malware-infected phones to journalists to make this hack work. John responded to these accusations by writing: “Of course there was malware on the phones. We will publish how this malware got into history after talking with Google. This is a serious flaw in the Android architecture."
In August 2022, McAfee stepped down as CEO, declaring himself the "chief visionary of cybersecurity."
In January 2022, he left the company altogether. Both parties said the decision was amicable, as John said he wanted to dedicate his time to cryptocurrencies, while the company said they were pressured by potential investors to disown John.
McAfee in cinema
John McAfee always “wrote life beautifully, without a draft.” Of course, his story attracted the attention of filmmakers. The documentary Gringo: The Dangerous Life of John McAfee was released last year. Canadian filmmakers are making a documentary “Who Is McAfee.” Billy Corben, director of the acclaimed Cocaine Cowboys, is working on a documentary miniseries, The McAfee Project.
Last year, a feature film about McAfee’s adventures in Belize, “King of the Jungle,” based on the book by Joshua Davis, was announced; the rights to his story were bought by Warner Brothers. In 2013, Davis and his namesake, Bierman, founded EPIC magazine, the stories from which are beloved in Hollywood. Bierman won an Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay for Argo. So it should be epic! According to the latest news, Johnny Depp has been cast in the lead role. Although McAfee himself wanted Morgan Freeman to play him.
McAfee found dead
The founder of antivirus ] McAfee [/anchor] John McAfee was found dead in a Spanish prison. He was there on a tax evasion case pending extradition to the United States.
According to The Verge, McAfee could have committed suicide. He was found hanged in his cell several hours before being deported to the United States, as reported by Reuters, citing his lawyer Javier Villalba.
At the time of his death, the founder of McAfee was 75 years old. He did not live until his 76th birthday a little less than three months. By this time, his sentence in the prison of the municipality of Sant Esteve Sesrovires in Catalonia had exceeded eight months.
The pioneer of computer antiviruses is no longer with us
McAfee was arrested in early October 2022 for tax evasion. He faced up to 30 years in prison.
The beginning of the way
Cybersecurity founder John McAfee was born on September 18, 1945, at a US Army base in Scotland. Soon his parents, who were British citizens, moved to America. He spent his childhood and education in Virginia. It was here that John McAfee first showed his entrepreneurial spirit.
McAfee's troubled life began with his father's drunkenness, who committed suicide. The millionaire admitted to journalists that the memory of this tragic day haunts him every day throughout his life. The father’s addiction was passed on to his son: already in college he begins to drink alcohol and take drugs.
But this did not stop John McAfee from studying mathematics and graduating with honors from the educational institution. In 1967 he became a Bachelor of Mathematics, and in 2008 received a Doctor of Science degree. In parallel with his studies, the future millionaire founded the first small company that delivered fresh newspapers to the customer’s home.
John McAfee has collaborated with well-known companies related to software development. All this time he continued to drink alcohol and drugs. He was lonely and did not find support from anyone. Having moved to California, John does not immediately understand that he will not be able to cope with his serious addiction to drugs and alcohol on his own. However, then he still asks for help.
