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68 postsJohn McAfee is an American computer programmer and entrepreneur born in 1945. He was one of the first people to design anti-virus software and to develop a virus scanner, creating McAfee Associates. He now has no relationship with the company, which was sold to Intel Corp. In 2010 he moved to Belize to start a biotech company, but left the country when accused of murdering his neighbor. He currently resides in the U.S.
Launches McAfee Associates
I stumbled onto McAfee when my brother-in-law showed me a newspaper article about a computer virus, one of the first computer viruses actually, I just was rocked by the whole thing, I remember reading the story and being fascinated by the technology and at the same time, my mind was already working on how to solve it. So I sat down and wrote a program and put what I had made on my bulletin board.
McAfee tells journalists that a virus dubbed “Michelangelo,” which completely wipes the hard drive of infected computers, will be activated on as many as five million PCs. His declaration causes a near-panic in the computer-using world. But by March 7, nothing has happened. He is blamed for creating a false threat to sell more of his anti-virus software. Sales reportedly “skyrocket” with more than half of the companies in the Fortune 100 having purchased McAfee software.
The Michelangelo fiasco destroys McAfee’s reputation within the company, and he is forced out. He cashes out most of his stock for $100 million. He purchases a 280-acre compound in Woodland Park, Colorado for $25 million. The estate includes a 10,000-square-foot mansion, two apartments, and nine guest cabins.
Under a new company called Tribal Voices McAfee develops PowWow, one of the first Internet instant messaging and VoIP clients.
McAfee sells Tribal Voices for about $17 million. He purchases properties in Arizona, Hawaii, Texas, and New Mexico and takes up Aerotrekking.
McAfee invests in San Francisco-based cybersecurity firm Zone Labs, creator of the then-popular ZoneAlarm firewall product. McAfee also joins the company’s board of directors.
The New York Times reports McAfee’s fortune had plunged to $4 million from its $100 million peak, due largely to the real estate and stock market crashes that hit his investments. McAfee plans to auction off property in New Mexico to pay his bills.
I had no clue that there would be this tandem collapse.
McAfee moves to Belize to work at his company QuorumEx, working towards producing commercial all natural antibiotics based on anti-quorum sensing technology.
If bacteria were triggered when there was only a few hundred cells, the immune system would wipe them out, but when they have grown to a few trillion cells, the immune system cannot do that. So they have this huge intelligence and I was startled and amazed and intrigued by that. When I first read that quorum sensing was a technique used by these bacteria, I go, ‘Whoa!’…The advantage was, that part of world has an astonishingly high number of plants that use quorum sensing, that could be used to find QuorumX.
Intel pays $7.68 billion to acquire McAfee Associates. Intel hopes the purchase will separate its products from those of its rivals and accelerate its move into smartphones and consumer electronics. According to the research firm IDC, McAfee has 17.7 percent of the market for securing computing devices, trailing the market leader Symantec, which has 36.2 percent.
McAfee’s property in Orange Walk Town, Belize, is raided by the Gang Suppression Unit. A GSU press release says that he was arrested for unlicensed drug manufacturing and possession of an unlicensed weapon. During the raid, guards find a lab where antibiotics are being produced without a license. One of McAfee’s 11 dogs is shot for allegedly attacking one of the officers. In the end, all charges are dropped. McAfee later posts his account of events.
In the pre-dawn hours of April 30th of this year I woke to the sound of a bullhorn yelling un-intelligible orders. I ran naked outside and saw a military formation whose uniforms identified them as GSU, creeping slowly down my driveway. I laid down the pistol that I keep for protection and, contrary to Josh Davis’ assertion that I said “Motherf-ckers”, said nothing and went back inside. I woke Amy, the 17 year old with whom I was living, and calmly told her to get dressed – that the GSU was invading the property. Amy is a tough young woman. She said nothing, got up, got dressed and sat calmly on the edge of the bed. I put on a pair of shorts and went outside. I was immediately grabbed and shoved up against the wall of the house. A sheet of paper was produced stating that the GSU was looking for an illegal meth lab. I did not have my glasses and could not read it so the officer explained it to me.
The remainder of that day was a nightmare of the highest order. My hands were handcuffed behind my back and for 14 hours I sat in the sun without food or water while I watched my property being destroyed and taken away. At around two in the afternoon I asked a nearby officer for water and food. “Do I look like a chef to you?” was his reply. I was finally taken to Belize City and thrown in Jail. Eight hours later I was released with no charges being filed.
Faull’s body is found. He has been shot in the back in the head in his home on Ambergris Caye, about 300 yards from McAfee’s home.
Belize’s Prime Minister Barrow urges McAfee to help the country’s police with the murder inquiry.
I don’t want to be unkind, but he seems to be extremely paranoid – I would go so far as to say bonkers. He ought to man up and respect our laws and go in and talk to the police.
McAfee has said he does not want to give himself up because he is afraid the authorities will torture or kill him. Barrow calls McAfee’s statements “nonsense,” noting he had “never met the man”:
The media attention he has attracted offers him] the best possible safeguard. It’s not as if the police have said he is a suspect and certainly there is no question at this point of charges pending. The fact that this is smeared across international headlines means the police would have to act extremely cautiously in the full glare of the public spotlight.
McAfee tells Wired magazine in periodic phone updates he had dyed his hair, eyebrows, beard and mustache black.
I have modified my appearance in a radical fashion. I’ll probably look like a murderer, unfortunately.
McAfee tells AP in a telephone interview from an undisclosed location that he didn’t kill Faull, though he acknowledged he had differences with the dead man. Belize police have said they want to question his as a “person of interest” in the murder.
I barely knew him, I barely spoke ten words to him in the last three years. Certainly he was not my favorite person and I was not his. He was a heavy drinker and an annoyance. But the world is full of annoyances; if we killed all of our annoyances, there would be nobody left.
McAfee says he is in hiding, unarmed and accompanied only by a young woman, changing locations and telephones frequently to stay one step ahead of a Belize police unit he says wants to kill him.
Belizean police said they have charged McAfee’s British bodyguard William Mulligan, 29, and Mulligan’s wife, Stefanie, 22, for having unlicensed weapons and ammunition.
Police in Belize said they had detained three people for questioning in the death of Faull. The three detainees were one of McAfee’s bodyguards, William Mulligan; his groundskeeper, Cassian Chavaria; and a local taxi driver, Cesar Trapp. McAfee:
This is exactly what happened to Soviet dissidents when Stalin took power. If they could not catch the man himself, they rounded up all of his friends,” said McAfee, who added he fears he would be tortured or killed by police.
McAfee, using his “stuffmonger” alias, posts to a private message board asking for information about how phone tracking works.
How long does it take for a phone company to triangulate a cell phone signal? With what accuracy? Is there any way to confuse/delay the system? If a cell phone is turned off, but the battery is installed, is there any way to locate the phone? Are there any brands of phones are more/less difficult to triangulate?
Answers range from useful to speculative.
In an interview with The Daily Telegraph McAfee explains why he refuses to turn himself in to Belize authorities:
I think I will be summarily executed. I know the prime minister laughs at this. He’s a clever and charismatic person. The constitution has been ridden away with. They can make up some excuse for removing me. This is the way it is in this country…My plan is a day-to-day plan, simply to avoid detection.
McAfee is in hiding with a woman and admitted that he has a disguise. He follows the latest news of the search for him sporadically.
I wish I had a TV, that would be very informative. I’m keeping tabs through friends. I have intermittent access to the internet, again through friends.
McAfee does not stay on the phone with The Telegraph for long because he fears that the call could be traced to his current location. He says he is innocent of Faull’s death, asserting that he was at his villa the night of the murder.
I was at home. I heard nothing. I knew nothing until the following day.
In one of series of telephone interviews with Wired, McAfee responds to Belize Prime Minister Barrow’s questioning his sanity:.
I have no idea where it’s going. I do know that the prime minister and the prime minister’s statement yesterday could be equally reversed. You know, I think he himself is bonkers if he could throw away the constitution of the country and become dictator without the world catching on.
McAfee says he is inside his compound.
I am, where I am most of the time. I am certainly inside my compound.
The Belize Police Department say they are investigating the claim, noting that McAfee has several buildings on his ocean front compound on Ambergris Caye, a stretch of island just off the Belizean shore dotted with resorts.
That has been passed on to the police in San Pedro. They [the police] are checking it out right now.
In an phone call with NBC Dateline correspondent Morrison, McAfee offers a BZE$25,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of the person(s) responsible for Faull’s murder. He also claims he is at his home on the island, and not in hiding. Morrison says that McAfee continues to have no faith in the Belize Police Department, even when he is being offered to turn himself in with his attorney and television cameras. Morrison:
One of the claims he [McAfee] is making, and I challenged him on a good many of those claims, is that he does not have any intention of giving himself up, not now not ever. He is fixated on the notion that the police and the political establishment of the police are unbelievably corrupted and there is nothing he can do except stay in hiding.