Speaker 1: Hey guys, it's Jonathan. Before we get to today's episode,
Speaker 1: some of you may have already guessed at this, or
Speaker 1: you may follow Twitter or Facebook and have seen the
Speaker 1: announcement we are going to scale back Tech Stuff to
Speaker 1: once a week. We're just publishing once a week for
Speaker 1: a few months at least. This is because we've got
Speaker 1: a lot of stuff going on here at how Stuff works,
Speaker 1: and honestly, in order for it to all the work,
Speaker 1: we had to scale back in certain places. So we're
Speaker 1: going to just do an episode a week. It will
Speaker 1: still be every week. I'm still gonna be working on
Speaker 1: this show. When the time has come to the point
Speaker 1: where we're able to go back to two a week,
Speaker 1: we will, So this is just temporary, nothing to panic about.
Speaker 1: I still love the show, is still going to be
Speaker 1: doing the show, but want you guys to be aware
Speaker 1: of it. So if you are looking for new episodes
Speaker 1: of Tech Stuff, they should be going up from this
Speaker 1: point forward every Wednesday. So thank you guys so much
Speaker 1: for listening, and now on to today's episode, Get in
Speaker 1: Tech Technology with Tech Stuff from Stuff Tacon. Hey there, everyone,
Speaker 1: welcome to Tech Stuff. I am your host. Jonathan Strickland
Speaker 1: is today, I've got a little listener mail that I
Speaker 1: wanted to read. This listener mail goes Hey, Jonathan Kenny here,
Speaker 1: longtime listener, first time emailer. First off, love the show
Speaker 1: as a lifelong tech geek. I love hearing about cool tech,
Speaker 1: historic hacks, interweb lore and all the topics you've covered,
Speaker 1: both with Lauren and all your cool guest hosts. On
Speaker 1: recent sign offs, you mentioned possible suggested suggested topics like
Speaker 1: personalities in tech, and I remember how interesting your episode
Speaker 1: with Chris was on John McAfee back in two thousand
Speaker 1: and twelve. You've probably been following more recent events surrounding McAfee,
Speaker 1: his controversial actions and his wacky sense of humor, and
Speaker 1: I was wondering if an update to the original podcast
Speaker 1: is on the cards. Anyways, keep up the good work,
Speaker 1: you're interesting topics, and you are terrible pons, so bad
Speaker 1: they're good. Greetings from Northern Ireland, Kenny, Kenny, thank you
Speaker 1: so much. We are going to do an update on
Speaker 1: Mr John McAfee now. In order to do this update,
Speaker 1: I am going to play a part of the episode
Speaker 1: that that Kenny was referring to with me and Chris Palette,
Speaker 1: so that those who have not heard it, because it
Speaker 1: goes all the way back to two thousand twelve, can
Speaker 1: understand what we're talking about. Now. This is about twenty
Speaker 1: minutes of an episode we did about McAfee and other
Speaker 1: quote unquote eccentric personalities in technology. And after we listen
Speaker 1: to that classic piece of tech stuff, I'll come back
Speaker 1: and talk about some of the updates things that have
Speaker 1: happened since we recorded that show. So enjoy this classic
Speaker 1: piece of tech stuff lore about John McAfee, and I'll
Speaker 1: be chatting with you again in just a few minutes.
Speaker 1: You know, we've talked a lot about people who have
Speaker 1: very strong personalities, people like Bill Gates and Steve Jobs
Speaker 1: and um, you know, very very powerful personalities there. Uh.
Speaker 1: They may be friendly, they may be you know, have
Speaker 1: thorny anger management problems or whatever. But for the most part,
Speaker 1: you know, you can see a pretty good picture of
Speaker 1: the person involved. Um. And then there are other people
Speaker 1: who you go, wait, what what Yeah, And we've had
Speaker 1: a pretty big one of those towards the end of
Speaker 1: there's a spectrum of of normal, right right, there's some
Speaker 1: people who are further out on the edges of that spectrum.
Speaker 1: I would say, people like Steve Jobs and Bill Gates
Speaker 1: are a little further out on that spectrum than others
Speaker 1: because they are very they were both very driven. Of
Speaker 1: course Steve Jobs unfortunately passed away, but both very driven
Speaker 1: individuals who were passionate about their interests and UM, and
Speaker 1: both reportedly had times when they were not the most
Speaker 1: pleasant of people to be around. So so yeah, you've
Speaker 1: got that whole spectrum thing. Well that we wanted to
Speaker 1: talk today about some people who kind of fall outside
Speaker 1: that spectrum to the point where you'd say, all right,
Speaker 1: either this person has something seriously wrong going on with them,
Speaker 1: or perhaps the things that are being reported about this
Speaker 1: person are putting them in a really bad light. But
Speaker 1: in any way, they are clearly they're they're in a
Speaker 1: situation that is not normal, and they themselves may not
Speaker 1: be what we would call normal. Um. And the first
Speaker 1: one we wanted to talk about was the one who
Speaker 1: was in the news recently is John McAfee. And McAfee
Speaker 1: is a guy who's he's been known as being an
Speaker 1: eccentric for uh for more than a decade UM. But
Speaker 1: McAfee he was born in England and raised in Virginia.
Speaker 1: He went to Roanoke College and got a degree in
Speaker 1: mathematics from that college. UH he spent time as a
Speaker 1: programmer for NASA's Institute for Space Studies. He worked for
Speaker 1: a couple of big companies. He worked for UNIVAC, he
Speaker 1: worked for Xerox, UH nine, joined the Computer Sciences Corporation,
Speaker 1: and then he started working for Lockheed. And while he
Speaker 1: was working for Lockheed, that's when he started to develop
Speaker 1: the software that he has really become known for. In fact,
Speaker 1: it shares his name, the McAfee anti virus software. While
Speaker 1: at Lockheed, he was he became very interested in this
Speaker 1: idea of detecting and removing computer viruses because they were
Speaker 1: just really starting to blossom at that time. We're talking
Speaker 1: about UM the late eighties, and you know, this is
Speaker 1: before we really get into the eras of web. The
Speaker 1: Web doesn't really exist yet, actually doesn't exist yet in
Speaker 1: the in the eighties UM and very few companies have
Speaker 1: access to some of the other Internet functionalities like file
Speaker 1: transfer protocols or email, although they do exist at this time.
Speaker 1: But he was he could see that there was this
Speaker 1: rise in computer viruses and that because computers followed directions,
Speaker 1: there are ways of creating directions that make your computer
Speaker 1: do things that you don't necessarily want it to do,
Speaker 1: whether that's uh completely filling up a hard drive with
Speaker 1: meaningless information and breaking it, or installing some sort of
Speaker 1: of of uh trojan program that protects a nasty piece
Speaker 1: of malware from being detected. He was very much dedicated
Speaker 1: to creating software that would that would find that and
Speaker 1: remove it. Now. UM, it's interesting to note a little
Speaker 1: bit about his background and UM, I I read not
Speaker 1: too long ago a piece from released by Wired called
Speaker 1: John McAfee's Last Stand by Joshua Davis also have a
Speaker 1: an e book available on Amazon that you can purchase.
Speaker 1: I think it's ninety nine cents and I think it's
Speaker 1: a I want to say it's thirteen chapter something like that. Yeah. Uh,
Speaker 1: it's it's not a long long book, but it's it's
Speaker 1: you know, more than an article. Because apparently this guy
Speaker 1: from Wired was there for like six months yea. Um,
Speaker 1: but yeah, he he had been um, you know, as
Speaker 1: he was working for uh, you know, companies like omex
Speaker 1: Um in the early nineteen eighties. I mean, he was
Speaker 1: a pretty heavy drug user. Apparently I used cocaine, coeludes. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, he he had been a pretty heavy drinker
Speaker 1: before that, even in his college days. It looks like
Speaker 1: um and apparently got to a point where he decided,
Speaker 1: you know, that was it, he wasn't going to do
Speaker 1: this anymore. And he really straightened up, um cleaned up.
Speaker 1: And this was you know, this was before he really
Speaker 1: got the idea to go in and do this himself,
Speaker 1: to launch his own company, um so. And you know,
Speaker 1: it's not that I necessarily want to smear mud on
Speaker 1: John McAfee so much as I think it provides some
Speaker 1: context for for the kinds of things that happened later
Speaker 1: on in his life. Sure, and uh, he made some
Speaker 1: interesting decisions with that software that he created. One of
Speaker 1: those was that he decided upon the shareware distribution model,
Speaker 1: which ended up being a very effective way for him
Speaker 1: to get that software out there on the market. Um So.
Speaker 1: In eighties seven he formed McAfee Associates, which was essentially
Speaker 1: in charge of creating this MacAfee anti virus software. But
Speaker 1: it wasn't that much longer. I mean, it was just
Speaker 1: in ninety four when he resigned from the company, and
Speaker 1: a couple of years later he sold his his stake
Speaker 1: uh in the company entirely and just completely got away
Speaker 1: from it. Um. At one point I hear that he
Speaker 1: was valued at around a hundred million dollars. He himself
Speaker 1: stated that due to the economic depression and downturn and
Speaker 1: and all these other issues, that he was reduced too
Speaker 1: closer to four million dollars uh after that was all over,
Speaker 1: although more recently in two thousand twelve, he said that
Speaker 1: that was probably not entirely accurate. He may he may
Speaker 1: in fact have had a bit more than four million
Speaker 1: dollars UM. And this is where we start getting into
Speaker 1: some pretty strange stuff. Um. He one thing was that
Speaker 1: he was really interested in this this concept of quorum sensing,
Speaker 1: now uh quick. Quarum sensing, especially when it refers to bacteria,
Speaker 1: is a way of that bacteria have of reacting in
Speaker 1: a certain manner, and that manner is completely dependent upon
Speaker 1: how much bacteria is present at at time. So in
Speaker 1: other words, if you were to provide a stimulus to
Speaker 1: these bacteria, they would provide a response that would be
Speaker 1: based mostly upon how many other uh instances that bacteria
Speaker 1: are present. So if there is X number or greater,
Speaker 1: it will respond one way, But if it's fewer than
Speaker 1: that it will respond a different way. And uh McAfee
Speaker 1: said that he was doing this in order to try
Speaker 1: and develop new anti biotics, antibacterial treatments, things that could
Speaker 1: help humans, uh in a medicinal way. And he relocated
Speaker 1: to two Belize, just in Central America, the only country
Speaker 1: in Central America, by the way, for which English is
Speaker 1: the official language, although from what I understand it is
Speaker 1: not the most prevalent language spoken there. It is however,
Speaker 1: the official one. Anyway, he moved to Belize, Um created
Speaker 1: this lab in his home in a apparently a pretty
Speaker 1: large compound there, but he has a lab at that compound.
Speaker 1: That was from what he was saying, all about studying
Speaker 1: this stuff to try and create better medicines, mostly medicines
Speaker 1: that he was looking at. He was looking at a
Speaker 1: lot of natural elements, things that were um found out
Speaker 1: in rainforests, things like that as the key to these
Speaker 1: sort of medicines. That's what he was claiming. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: would seem that his his entrepreneurial spirit hasn't completely left
Speaker 1: because he's he's done this. He's also even apparently tried
Speaker 1: to come up with a a sport. Yes when he
Speaker 1: was living out in the southwest. Now this is before
Speaker 1: he moved to Belize. Um. Apparently, Um, I was listening
Speaker 1: to a radio report from someone who had been uh
Speaker 1: you know, who had met McAfee more than once, and
Speaker 1: he said, yeah, I want you to come out here
Speaker 1: and check out this new sport, apparently, narrow treking. You're
Speaker 1: supposed to fly, I don't know, very very close to
Speaker 1: the ground, um. Ideas, you fly very low to the
Speaker 1: ground using some form of aircraft. It might even be
Speaker 1: a hang glider with a motor attached to it. But
Speaker 1: the idea is that you are flying close to the
Speaker 1: ground so that you get that real sense of speed
Speaker 1: and danger from being you know, just a very short
Speaker 1: distance away from crashing to a potential terrible injury or death.
Speaker 1: And in fact, McAfee was involved in a wrongful death
Speaker 1: lawsuit that was the result of a person dying from
Speaker 1: an arrow trekking accident. Um. So I mean this was
Speaker 1: you know, he's known as a daredevil as well as
Speaker 1: many other things, which will I guess we can kind
Speaker 1: of segue into. Now this is gonna get really weird, folks,
Speaker 1: because here here's the thing is that there are a
Speaker 1: lot of different reports. There's what McAfee has said through
Speaker 1: or we presume it's McAfee, through various blogs and Twitter
Speaker 1: at count Twitter messages, things like that, there are things
Speaker 1: that he has said, there are things that people who
Speaker 1: know him have have said. There's things that journalists who
Speaker 1: have investigated this have said, and honestly, we don't have
Speaker 1: the whole story. But no matter who's telling the story,
Speaker 1: it's weird. UM well known that the Belize police have
Speaker 1: visited him on more than one occasion. Yes, they're their
Speaker 1: gangs unit actually rated his house in April two thousand twelve,
Speaker 1: the Gang Suppression Unit in Orange Walkdown, Belize. They rated
Speaker 1: his home under suspicion that his laboratory was actually producing
Speaker 1: crystal meth. That that was in fact what he was
Speaker 1: interested in making and not UM medicine. And in fact
Speaker 1: there are there are journalists, they're bloggers who have said that,
Speaker 1: UM that that McAfee was very active in online discussion
Speaker 1: forums that were dedicated to drug manufacturer like as an
Speaker 1: illicit drugs or or recreational drugs UM. Although there is
Speaker 1: a woman who um he talked into a job offer
Speaker 1: to come down and work on UH medicinal drugs as well,
Speaker 1: so that again, this is their conflicting report. So they
Speaker 1: could be that these reports that he was the one
Speaker 1: who was on these recreational drug sites, maybe that wasn't him,
Speaker 1: you know, because they were using uh pseudonyms, I mean handles,
Speaker 1: they weren't It wasn't just him there. But Gismoto published
Speaker 1: a report that very much seemed to indicate that he
Speaker 1: was one of the people on this recreational drug forum
Speaker 1: talking about trying to perfect a typical kind of drug
Speaker 1: that would, um well, supposed to enhance his his sexual
Speaker 1: experiences as well as give a sense of euphoria and
Speaker 1: supposedly would create a very gradual and mel oh come
Speaker 1: down afterward. So uh and and he the guy who
Speaker 1: was posting under this name, posted a lot about this
Speaker 1: particular kind of drug. Um Whether or not that was
Speaker 1: John McAfee, however, is still a question. Now. One of
Speaker 1: the things that people have said is that the drugs
Speaker 1: that he was talking about often can create a sense
Speaker 1: of paranoia in someone who's using those drugs. Now, again,
Speaker 1: whether or not McFee was using those drugs is a
Speaker 1: is a question that's left open. However, I think it's
Speaker 1: safe to say that paranoia is something he has felt,
Speaker 1: Yes he has. He has demonstrated, uh, paranoid tendencies. Now
Speaker 1: again there's always that joke just because your paranoia doesn't
Speaker 1: mean they're not out to get you. But we can't
Speaker 1: really say that, but we can definitely say that he
Speaker 1: has shown some some paranoid tendencies. One of those is
Speaker 1: trying to evade the police. Now, as of the recording
Speaker 1: of this podcast, which is at the end of November twelve,
Speaker 1: he's still on the run from police and Belize. And
Speaker 1: the reason why the police are interested in him is
Speaker 1: that someone who lived near him, Gregory Vellant Fall, was
Speaker 1: found shot dead a few several meters away from from
Speaker 1: McAfee's property and um Fall and McAfee had a history
Speaker 1: of some arguments, some some uh, some disagreements, one of
Speaker 1: which was that Fall said that McAfee mcfee's dogs, but
Speaker 1: I think McFee owned like eleven dogs, but that his
Speaker 1: dogs were barking all the time and that was driving
Speaker 1: Fall crazy. And uh. One of the other issues that
Speaker 1: happened recently was that several of McAfee's dogs, I think
Speaker 1: four of them died of poisoning. So the implication here
Speaker 1: and again this is all unfolding, so we don't have
Speaker 1: the full information, but the implication is that perhaps Fall
Speaker 1: or someone that Fall knows, poisoned the dogs, and that
Speaker 1: perhaps there was an act of retribution against Fall. So
Speaker 1: when the news first broke, it sounded like McAfee was
Speaker 1: not just a person of interest but a suspect. Since then,
Speaker 1: the Belize police have said, no, he's not a suspect.
Speaker 1: We just want to talk to him because we want
Speaker 1: to find out who killed Fall. It's possible that perhaps
Speaker 1: someone around McAfee killed Fall for McAfee, not necessarily on
Speaker 1: McAfee's command, because, as it turns out, McAfee has seemingly
Speaker 1: started to hang out with some pretty rough customers in Belize. Yep,
Speaker 1: the photography that that accompanies the Wired book includes some
Speaker 1: people with some very large guns. Yeah. The stories that
Speaker 1: are essentially I'm sorry, I mean, there's a guns are
Speaker 1: pretty heavily restricted in Belize too. So the story essentially
Speaker 1: is that it sounds like McAfee has um formed relationships
Speaker 1: with several of the drugs in Belize. Now, it may
Speaker 1: be that he was doing this in an attempt to
Speaker 1: get hold of materials for his legitimate medical you know,
Speaker 1: research that could be the case, it would not be
Speaker 1: necessarily the wisest move a person has ever made to
Speaker 1: get involved with drug lords, but that's a possibility. Now
Speaker 1: a lot of other people are saying, no, what's happening
Speaker 1: is McAfee got involved with them so he could get
Speaker 1: the ingredients he needed to make the recreational drugs that
Speaker 1: he was interested in, which again we don't know, um so. Anyway,
Speaker 1: it's possible that maybe one of these you know, gang
Speaker 1: members that he hangs out with committed the murder and
Speaker 1: it wasn't McAfee at all. So we don't know if
Speaker 1: McAfee shot Fall, or if someone McAfee knows shot him,
Speaker 1: or if it was just some random crime that seems
Speaker 1: that seems the most unrealistic of the various possibilities, but
Speaker 1: we don't know, um so. McAfee has been on the
Speaker 1: run and has been posting, or at least there have
Speaker 1: been blog post attributed to McAfee that have posted in
Speaker 1: his absence that have made things sound even more strange,
Speaker 1: for instance, that McAfee has been using elaborate disguises to
Speaker 1: to hide in plain sight. Yes, he appeared as a
Speaker 1: German um tourist basically using profanity and just shouting at
Speaker 1: people randomly, or tried to uh disguise himself and hunch
Speaker 1: over so that he didn't appear as tall as he
Speaker 1: normally is, and uh spoken heavily accented English, trying to
Speaker 1: sell trinkets to uh he said even or this person
Speaker 1: said he even attempted to sell something to an Associated
Speaker 1: Press reporter who didn't recognize him, a wooden dolphins. Yes, uh,
Speaker 1: that the reporter suddenly had an urgent call to attend to. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's in the blog post McAfee assuming in his McAfee
Speaker 1: claimed that he nearly sold one of these trinkets before
Speaker 1: the p reporter was called away. Um. Now the police
Speaker 1: police have been asking him to turn himself in so
Speaker 1: that he can talk about whatever it is that happened
Speaker 1: to fall, like who who could have possibly killed him,
Speaker 1: and to clear his name. McAfee in turn, has said that,
Speaker 1: or at least according to these reports and according to
Speaker 1: people who know him who say they've talked to him,
Speaker 1: says that he doesn't want to go into police custody
Speaker 1: because he firmly believes that the police will kill him
Speaker 1: once he's in their custody. Yeah, he um. He even
Speaker 1: reacted to the that's the way he's on the run now.
Speaker 1: Actually was because when the when the police showed up,
Speaker 1: he thought they were coming to hassle him again. So
Speaker 1: he here, that's what he says. Anyway, so he escaped
Speaker 1: before they could catch him. Yeah, he um. So anyway,
Speaker 1: he's saying that the police are definitely going to kill
Speaker 1: him if they take him into custody. Uh. He's also
Speaker 1: at one point apparently suggested that, uh that fall falls
Speaker 1: death was really meant, was that there was a hit
Speaker 1: gone wrong. It was meant to hit McAfee and instead
Speaker 1: hit Fallum. That was one of the other possibilities I
Speaker 1: heard a couple of weeks before we record this podcast. Um.
Speaker 1: So it's these are these are definitely tendencies that we
Speaker 1: would classify as paranoite. Um. And honestly, again we don't
Speaker 1: know all the information. It maybe that perhaps McAfee is
Speaker 1: a very eccentric but otherwise mostly innocent person. Now it's
Speaker 1: true that his personal life also has some other complications.
Speaker 1: Apparently he has several people living at that compound with him,
Speaker 1: including several young women with whom he often has sexual relations,
Speaker 1: and including one who is identified over and over as
Speaker 1: a seventeen year old girlfriend. But then there are other women, uh,
Speaker 1: and and at that compound as well, and so I
Speaker 1: mean they're they're definitely. So it's kind of this weird,
Speaker 1: larger than life, odd David Lynch sort of story thing.
Speaker 1: Like if if I saw the US in a film,
Speaker 1: I would think the Coen Brothers made it. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: just it's just so weird when you think of somebody
Speaker 1: who has gone down in history as coming up with
Speaker 1: a very successful tech product. Um. You know, you you
Speaker 1: don't typically think of that. You think of somebody like
Speaker 1: Jobs or Gates or um, maybe Larry Ellison. Uh, you
Speaker 1: know some some people who they've got lots of money,
Speaker 1: they live a jet setter's lifestyle. Maybe maybe not um,
Speaker 1: but you don't really typically think of you know, when
Speaker 1: you hear something like, well, John McPhee is a person
Speaker 1: of interest in this murder case, and really that's just strange.
Speaker 1: All right, now you've heard the beginning of that story
Speaker 1: and how crazy it God and believes. But now let's
Speaker 1: talk about what's happened since we recorded that episode. We
Speaker 1: recorded it back and I think November of two thousand
Speaker 1: twelve and In fact, quite a lot happened after November
Speaker 1: two thousand twelve, just to round out the year. So
Speaker 1: we left off with McAfee on the run and in disguise,
Speaker 1: occasionally updating his status through a blog. The Prime Minister
Speaker 1: of Belize named Dean Barrow stated that McAfee was paranoid
Speaker 1: and quote bonkers. In the quote, he said McAfee was
Speaker 1: refusing to answer questions as a person of interest, and
Speaker 1: said McAfee was unfairly portraying Belize as a corrupt nation.
Speaker 1: So we have two very different stories going on here.
Speaker 1: McAfee is claiming that the government of Belize is inherently
Speaker 1: corrupt uh and that the police were not just out
Speaker 1: to ask him a few questions, but we're possibly going
Speaker 1: to actually kill him. Meanwhile, you've got the Prime Minister
Speaker 1: of Belize saying this is not true. We're just investigating
Speaker 1: the death of a person who was killed in beliefe
Speaker 1: ease and all you want to do is ask some questions.
Speaker 1: In fact, Dean Barrow said this is so high profile now,
Speaker 1: it's so focused on in the media that it would
Speaker 1: be ridiculous for any harm to come to McAfee in Belize.
Speaker 1: Police custody. It would end up being proof that what
Speaker 1: McAfee was saying was true, which doesn't make any sense
Speaker 1: on the part of Belize. However, that being said, McAfee
Speaker 1: was having none of it. He did not want to
Speaker 1: come back. On December five, two thousand and twelve, McAfee
Speaker 1: was arrested by Guatemalan police, who tracked him to a
Speaker 1: posh Guatemala City neighborhood. They arrested him on the charge
Speaker 1: of entering Guatemala illegally. Now McAfee had sought asylum in
Speaker 1: Guatemala to avoid contact with the police force in Belize.
Speaker 1: The police in Guatemala determined his location by a pretty
Speaker 1: simple method. They looked the meta data on a photo
Speaker 1: uploaded to VICE. A group of VICE reporters were actually
Speaker 1: traveling with McAfee and documenting the whole experience, and they
Speaker 1: failed to strip the photo of metadata before they uploaded it,
Speaker 1: so the photo actually included information on where the picture
Speaker 1: was taken, and the police were able to use that
Speaker 1: to narrow their search and catch McAfee. Now, Guatemalan authorities
Speaker 1: announced they would deport McAfee, though at the time it
Speaker 1: wasn't certain if they would send him to Belize or
Speaker 1: send him to the United States. Keep in mind macfee's
Speaker 1: actually was born in the UK. He lived in the
Speaker 1: US when he created McAfee software, then moved to Belize.
Speaker 1: This is a pretty complicated issue here now. No no,
Speaker 1: no formal charges have been leveled on McAfee from Belize,
Speaker 1: so that also complicated matters. A few days later, McAfee
Speaker 1: complained of experiencing symptoms that were similar to that of
Speaker 1: a heart attack, and in fact, it was widely reported
Speaker 1: that he suffered a heart attack and was rushed to
Speaker 1: a hospital in Guatemala. Meanwhile, his attorney was filing appeals
Speaker 1: for his deportation, and his attorney actually said that McAfee
Speaker 1: had not suffered a heart attack per se, but rather
Speaker 1: an acute anxiety attack and actually was having changes in
Speaker 1: his blood pressure and that was what had set off
Speaker 1: his his uh, his symptoms, and that he had even
Speaker 1: fainted from this. Meanwhile, the doctor said there was no
Speaker 1: reason to hold McAfee and they discharged him from the hospital,
Speaker 1: so he went back to the detention center in Guatemala. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: you have these appeals coming in and I guess either
Speaker 1: the Guatemalan government figured that sending him to the United
Speaker 1: States was the most logical conclusion, or they just didn't
Speaker 1: want to deal with him anymore. At any rate, they
Speaker 1: deported McAfee to Miami on December twelve, two thousand twelve.
Speaker 1: He then claimed that he had essentially faked all those
Speaker 1: symptoms in order to give his attorney enough time to
Speaker 1: file the appeals before he could be deported to Belize.
Speaker 1: McAfee then offered a twenty five dollar reward for information
Speaker 1: that could lead to the arrest and conviction of the
Speaker 1: person responsible for Gregory Falls murder. There's a lot to
Speaker 1: say about this. I personally have never spoken with John McAfee.
Speaker 1: I do not know him at all, so I only
Speaker 1: know of him. I know what I've read, and I
Speaker 1: know that there are a lot of conflicting depictions of
Speaker 1: McAfee and the media. There's some that portray him as
Speaker 1: very much the victim. There's some who suggest that he
Speaker 1: is manipulating the media and people around him, and we'll
Speaker 1: talk more about that in a second. So who is
Speaker 1: actually telling the truth here is hard to say, but
Speaker 1: it's certainly seems to be the case that McAfee has
Speaker 1: a history of what he calls playing hoaxes on people.
Speaker 1: Some might say that the hoax is an excuse for
Speaker 1: his behavior, saying that, oh no, he wasn't really trying
Speaker 1: to achieve this underhanded tactic. He was just playing a trick. Um.
Speaker 1: It all sounds fishy to me, But I don't know
Speaker 1: the man, and I was not involved in any of this,
Speaker 1: so I can only speak from my own personal perspective here. Anyway,
Speaker 1: let's move on to two thousand thirteen, because we got
Speaker 1: so much more to talk about here. So in April,
Speaker 1: it's announced that the drug smuggler George Young, whose own
Speaker 1: biography was told in the film Blow That was the
Speaker 1: movie that had Johnny Depp playing the part of Young,
Speaker 1: that George Young would write McAfee's biography. It was going
Speaker 1: to be called No Domain. However, as of August when
Speaker 1: I'm recording this, it has yet to be published. And honestly,
Speaker 1: when I was doing searches on this, I couldn't find
Speaker 1: any updated information. Now that could very well be that
Speaker 1: this is still a book that's in the writing process.
Speaker 1: Books to time to write and to edit and to publish.
Speaker 1: My father is an author, and I have seen this
Speaker 1: process take more than a year. Several times. But that
Speaker 1: being said, I haven't seen any more updates on this,
Speaker 1: so I don't know if this project is dead in
Speaker 1: the water or not, but it certainly made the news.
Speaker 1: Back in also inteen and May, McAfee sat down for
Speaker 1: a four hour interview with USA Today, and in that interview,
Speaker 1: he proclaimed his innocence of the Gregory Fall murder and
Speaker 1: suggested perhaps it was another American expatriate who committed the
Speaker 1: murder and said that he believed believes authorities were persecuting him.
Speaker 1: That is McAfee, because he had refused to pay a
Speaker 1: two million dollar bribe earlier, and by this time he
Speaker 1: was living near Portland, Oregon. This is where the story
Speaker 1: gets even more weird and complicated. Belies authorities say they
Speaker 1: have no idea who McAfee is talking about with this
Speaker 1: or American expatriate. McAfee says it was another neighbor. The
Speaker 1: Belize authorities say, we don't even know that such a
Speaker 1: person exists, And again it becomes difficult to figure out
Speaker 1: who is telling the truth. And it may very well
Speaker 1: be that the person exists and the Belize authorities aren't
Speaker 1: aware of the person. That's a possibility to it could
Speaker 1: be that both parties are telling the truth. I honestly
Speaker 1: don't know. Also, in May of twenty thirteen, Jeff Wise
Speaker 1: publishes a piece in Psychology Today about McAfee and alleges
Speaker 1: that McAfee delights in manipulating the media and twisting stories
Speaker 1: for his own amusement. Essentially that he finds it entertaining
Speaker 1: and possibly advantageous to manipulate the media and create a
Speaker 1: narrative vision of what who he is and what he's
Speaker 1: all about. It's not entirely clear what Wise thinks actually
Speaker 1: happened with McAfee in Belize, and it's possible that Wise
Speaker 1: himself isn't really sure what happened because McAfee has this
Speaker 1: weird behavior. He says that he visited McAfee in Belize
Speaker 1: and felt very much ill at ease during that visit.
Speaker 1: He had visited him more than once, but on his
Speaker 1: final visit to McAfee and Belize, he seems to indicate
Speaker 1: that he felt like he was in danger or potentially
Speaker 1: in danger. He saw that there were security that were
Speaker 1: armed that were walking around, there were no other people
Speaker 1: there besides the security, and some women hanging around, and
Speaker 1: that he felt it was a dangerous situation. He also
Speaker 1: reported that a former partner of McAfee's who was working
Speaker 1: on the antibiotic project, had said that McAfee had switched
Speaker 1: things out eventually, had decided instead of going after antibiotics UH,
Speaker 1: to concentrate on drugs that would affect the female libido
Speaker 1: in other words, to convince women to have sexual relations
Speaker 1: with men, which is super duper creepy. And she also
Speaker 1: alleged that he was, if not abusive, he was at
Speaker 1: least very scary around her, and she felt like she
Speaker 1: needed to escape that situation. So all of this points
Speaker 1: to some pretty negative depictions of McAfee UM that seemed
Speaker 1: to fall in line with what other people have said.
Speaker 1: But McAfee himself says that this is all incorrect, that
Speaker 1: none of this is really who he is UM and
Speaker 1: in fact wise would go on to say that McAfee
Speaker 1: shared several qualities with people who have psychopathic personalities. UM.
Speaker 1: He didn't go so far as to call McAfee an
Speaker 1: actual psychopath, just said that he appears to have some
Speaker 1: personality traits that are similar to that of psychopaths, including
Speaker 1: things like making grandiose announcements or plans UH and also
Speaker 1: having like this kind of paranoid persecution complex that he
Speaker 1: is so important that other entities wish to knock him
Speaker 1: off his pedestal, like the idea that he himself is
Speaker 1: the target of a lot of uh scrutiny and of spying,
Speaker 1: and he's also actually a target of assassins, that that
Speaker 1: he believes these things because of his his his feeling
Speaker 1: of self importance, that's wise his position. He also says
Speaker 1: that McAfee seems to have very little care or regard
Speaker 1: about how he affects other people, which is another quality
Speaker 1: of a psychopath um But again, Wise never actually says
Speaker 1: that McAfee's a psychopath. He says he has some psychopathic tendencies,
Speaker 1: just subtle distinction. Also, also in May two thousand thirteen,
Speaker 1: two of the buildings on McAfee's compound, back and Belieze,
Speaker 1: were burned down. And it all depends upon the account
Speaker 1: you read, and some accounts it's called a brush fire
Speaker 1: that's spread to the compound, and that these two buildings
Speaker 1: burned down as a result. McAfee made statements that essentially
Speaker 1: made it sound like he believed these fires were arson,
Speaker 1: that they were essentially set possibly by the authorities of
Speaker 1: Belieze on his former compound. Again, no way of telling
Speaker 1: what the truth is here. In June, McAfee shoots a
Speaker 1: spoof video. This is still in two thousand thirteen. He
Speaker 1: shoots a spoof video called how to uninstall McAfee anti Virus.
Speaker 1: And this is all done as a joke. It's a
Speaker 1: pretty tasteless joke in some cases, but it is a joke,
Speaker 1: and it's mostly McAfee pointing poking fun not just at
Speaker 1: the anti virus software that still has his name but
Speaker 1: he has no connection to, but also poking fun at
Speaker 1: the public image of McAfee himself. So in the video,
Speaker 1: at first he's wearing a smoking jacket that's over a tuxedo,
Speaker 1: and he explains that he still gets tons of requests
Speaker 1: from people about how to uninstall the McAfee any virus software,
Speaker 1: but he says, I don't know because I'm not connected
Speaker 1: to it. I haven't had anything to do with that
Speaker 1: software for more than fifteen years. Then he lights a
Speaker 1: cigarette using a one dollar bill and then starts reading
Speaker 1: messages from various people about the McAfee software. And these
Speaker 1: messages have lots and lots of profanity in them. This
Speaker 1: whole video, by the way, is probably not safe for
Speaker 1: work for most people. If you work in like an
Speaker 1: off typical office environment, I would say probably not safe,
Speaker 1: and also shows McAfee surrounded by women who are wearing
Speaker 1: various sexy costumes like a you know, like the sexy
Speaker 1: nurse costume, that kind of stuff. He's also surrounded by
Speaker 1: guns and supposedly indulging in rugs like he's clearly uh
Speaker 1: snorting various stuff using a crazy straw at one point. Um,
Speaker 1: but uh, clearly this is played up in a big way. Also, meanwhile,
Speaker 1: a technician is attempting to explain the uninstalling process while
Speaker 1: all of this other stuff is going on. And um,
Speaker 1: it's a weird video. Again, it's obviously a joke, it's
Speaker 1: not meant to be taken seriously, and it does incorporate
Speaker 1: a lot of the behaviors McAfee has been accused of. Uh,
Speaker 1: and I assume an attempt to say this is ridiculous,
Speaker 1: this isn't who I am. In November, McFee was sued
Speaker 1: by Gregory Fall's daughter in a wrongful death lawsuit. Now
Speaker 1: McAfee said the timing seemed rather convenient to him, as
Speaker 1: it was public knowledge that he had lost nearly everything
Speaker 1: back in Belize and had to start back from scratch,
Speaker 1: but no one sued him during those months when he
Speaker 1: had nothing. It was only when he began to long
Speaker 1: a new business that, uh, this lawsuit came forward. And
Speaker 1: so he was essentially alleging that Gregory Fall's daughter only
Speaker 1: sued him because he clearly had some money again, and
Speaker 1: that it wasn't in an effort to actually get justice
Speaker 1: for the murder of her father. That I'm I am
Speaker 1: definitely inferring a lot from what McAfee said in the
Speaker 1: various reports, but that seems to be the gist of it. Uh.
Speaker 1: He even mentioned that his efforts to launch a business
Speaker 1: had been covered in the media and that he had
Speaker 1: even made statements saying he didn't have to seek out
Speaker 1: venture capital in order to launch his business. So he
Speaker 1: was just suggesting that Falls family was jumping at an
Speaker 1: opportunity at that point. McAfee also did found a new
Speaker 1: company at that point called Future Tense Central. Uh. It's
Speaker 1: dedicated to online security and privacy, and I'll talk a
Speaker 1: little bit about the product they offer when we get
Speaker 1: to twenty fifteen, but first let's move on to thousand fourteen.
Speaker 1: In July, McAfee is found to have been legally responsible
Speaker 1: for the death of Robert Gilson, who died in an
Speaker 1: ultra light aircraft crash in two thousand six. The pilot
Speaker 1: of that aircraft was Joel Gordon Batau, which was McAfee's nephew,
Speaker 1: who also died in that crash. U The charges were
Speaker 1: that Bto didn't really have a full pilot's license, so
Speaker 1: therefore was not qualified to teach this in the first place,
Speaker 1: and that it was McAfee who was responsible because McAfee
Speaker 1: ran the business promoting what he called aerotrekking, which is
Speaker 1: a sport in which small aircraft are flown at low
Speaker 1: altitudes over rough terrain. So McAfee was ordered to pay
Speaker 1: two and a half million dollars in damages. Also in fourteen, Intel,
Speaker 1: which had purchased McAfee software, decided to rename McAfee and
Speaker 1: call it Intel Security, and this rebranding was in part
Speaker 1: to distance the product from John McAfee himself, and that
Speaker 1: was probably because of all the negative press that was
Speaker 1: coming up around John McAfee and the descriptions of his behavior.
Speaker 1: But for his part, McAfee said he was really happy
Speaker 1: that Intel renamed the software because he had had no
Speaker 1: connection with McAfee software since he got out of the
Speaker 1: company in the mid nineties, and he felt that the
Speaker 1: product was a subpar, inferior product, and it's still had
Speaker 1: his name on it. So he said, I'm glad they
Speaker 1: changed the name of the stuff because I don't want
Speaker 1: to be associated with that program. He had some probably
Speaker 1: stronger language to describe all that. By the way, now
Speaker 1: let's get on up to two thousand and fifteen. I'm
Speaker 1: skipping over a lot of stuff because honestly, to cover
Speaker 1: all the different elements of McAfee's life would probably take
Speaker 1: me another episode or two, and most of them are
Speaker 1: again elements that it's hard to describe exactly what happened
Speaker 1: because there's so many different accounts, and as people have said,
Speaker 1: McAfee himself maybe an unreliable narrator. I'll say maybe, because
Speaker 1: again I don't know the man. But in two thousand fifteen,
Speaker 1: Spike TV commissions a six part mini series on McAfee,
Speaker 1: so they followed him around quite a bit this year,
Speaker 1: uh and leading up to August two thousand fifteen. I'm
Speaker 1: just gonna skip straight to it. Because a lot has
Speaker 1: happened this month. I'm recording this on August two thousand fifteen.
Speaker 1: So in August two thousand fifteen, McAfee is arrested in
Speaker 1: Tennessee for driving under the influence of prescription drugs while
Speaker 1: in possession of a handgun. So he's driving under the
Speaker 1: influence and he has a handgun in his car, both
Speaker 1: of which together are very much against the law in Tennessee,
Speaker 1: and so he's arrested and booked for that. Uh. He
Speaker 1: was released on five thousand dollars bond, and he wrote
Speaker 1: about it online and said he apologized if he offended
Speaker 1: anyone with the way he likes to dance around the
Speaker 1: boundaries of what is considered to be normal. Now, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna take just a little moment here to express my
Speaker 1: own personal opinion about this, And keep in mind this
Speaker 1: is my personal opinion, but I feel that if you
Speaker 1: are operating a vehicle while under the influence of drugs,
Speaker 1: prescribed or otherwise, you are no longer just dancing around
Speaker 1: what is to be normal. You are taking a risk
Speaker 1: not just to your own safety, but the safety of
Speaker 1: everyone else around you. If you are driving while your
Speaker 1: abilities and your judgment are impaired, then you are a
Speaker 1: danger to other people out there. And that goes beyond
Speaker 1: just being eccentric or deciding that normal isn't for you.
Speaker 1: That's being irresponsible. So I very much take issue with
Speaker 1: him saying I'm sorry if you're offended. First of all,
Speaker 1: never use that phrase. Don't ever say I'm sorry if
Speaker 1: you feel that way, or I'm sorry if you're offended,
Speaker 1: because you're still putting the responsibility the accountability on the
Speaker 1: person you are supposedly apologizing to. If you're actually apologizing,
Speaker 1: apologize for whatever it was you did. Don't say I'm
Speaker 1: sorry you're hurt or I'm sorry if that makes you angry,
Speaker 1: because you're suggesting that the other person is responsible for
Speaker 1: what has happened. If you're not sorry, then you're not sorry.
Speaker 1: I'm not going to tell you to apologize if you
Speaker 1: feel like you shouldn't apologize, but if you feel like
Speaker 1: you should apologize, it's much better. It doesn't feel good
Speaker 1: at the moment, but you'll feel better afterwards, trust me.
Speaker 1: All Right, tangent aside, let's get back to McAfee. He
Speaker 1: appears at def Con. That's a big hacker conference. In
Speaker 1: case you're not familiar. Uh, it's a conference where a
Speaker 1: lot of white hat hackers get together. Not just white
Speaker 1: hat hackers, they're hat hackers there too, white hat being
Speaker 1: the people who test various systems for vulnerabilities and then
Speaker 1: attempt to make that information known to the entities responsible
Speaker 1: for the systems so they can patch those vulnerabilities and
Speaker 1: make the systems stronger. There's also black hat hackers which
Speaker 1: look for vulnerabilities in an effort to exploit them, not
Speaker 1: to make the system stronger, but to be able to
Speaker 1: use the system for their own purposes. So it def con.
Speaker 1: McAfee promoted a product called demons Saw, which is a
Speaker 1: product from Future Tents, that company he founded back in
Speaker 1: two thousand thirteen. And demons Saw is an attempt to
Speaker 1: create a very safe encryption process that doesn't require public
Speaker 1: and private encryption keys. And I've talked about encryption keys
Speaker 1: in previous episodes, so I'm not going to go into that.
Speaker 1: But what these usually use our random number generators to
Speaker 1: create the the the encryption key itself, and it has
Speaker 1: to have some sort of seed to go into a
Speaker 1: random number generator to get that random number. Because machines
Speaker 1: are actually not good at actually generating random numbers. You
Speaker 1: typically feed some information into a machine and you get
Speaker 1: a random quote unquote random number after a series of
Speaker 1: operations are performed on that data. Uh, And there are
Speaker 1: a lot of different ways of doing this. You might
Speaker 1: use the amount of time it takes between typing a word,
Speaker 1: like the time between each letter being pressed down. That
Speaker 1: might be the information that ends up generating an encryption key,
Speaker 1: or it might be something like a weather pattern where
Speaker 1: you have a sensor picking up a change in air
Speaker 1: pressure or humidity or something along those lines, and that
Speaker 1: becomes the information that then is fed through a random
Speaker 1: number generator to create an encryption key. But demon saw
Speaker 1: was a is an idea where the encryption channel is
Speaker 1: created through shared experiences, meaning that you and the people
Speaker 1: you wish to communicate with all end up sharing some
Speaker 1: sort of experience. It might be a picture that's on
Speaker 1: the Internet, or a sound file, or some other web
Speaker 1: based or Internet based thing that you all have in
Speaker 1: common that ends up being the information that's fed through
Speaker 1: the random number generator because that way, it's the shared
Speaker 1: experience is something that is unique to the group. At
Speaker 1: least that's the idea, And this was something that McFee
Speaker 1: worked with Eric J. Anderson on. Eric J. Anderson is
Speaker 1: a coder and a programmer. He's also known for working
Speaker 1: on video games. He's a programmer for rock Star and
Speaker 1: worked on g T A five Grand Theft Auto five
Speaker 1: and the criticisms I've read of this mostly rely on
Speaker 1: the fact that one, it does not appear to have
Speaker 1: why spread adoption. There are not a lot of people
Speaker 1: using it right now, and to um, there haven't been
Speaker 1: any third party UH analysts who have had a chance
Speaker 1: to look at this and test it to make sure
Speaker 1: it's actually secure. All the the notifications we have about
Speaker 1: the security of the product comes straight from McAfee or Anderson,
Speaker 1: and therefore you know, you you don't know if you
Speaker 1: can trust those statements or not. So that also happened
Speaker 1: at def Con. McAfee held an A M A and
Speaker 1: asked me anything on Reddit UH, and it was long.
Speaker 1: He did this just a few days ago from when
Speaker 1: I'm recording this six days previously, so sometimes like August one,
Speaker 1: he held this a m A and um, I printed
Speaker 1: the whole thing out, and it's a lot of stuff
Speaker 1: in it. He talked about tons of things, including UH,
Speaker 1: the Internet, of Things and how it could pose a
Speaker 1: serious risk to security, something I actually agree with. I
Speaker 1: in fact, I agree with a lot of the things
Speaker 1: McAfee says about security in general. I don't necessarily believe
Speaker 1: all the information he cites, but I definitely agree with
Speaker 1: a lot of the conclusions he's come to. UM like
Speaker 1: the idea that the Internet of Things could be a
Speaker 1: huge security issue. Whether it's because it introduces more vulnerabilities
Speaker 1: into a system, which is entirely possible. If I hook
Speaker 1: up a whole bunch of different products to my home
Speaker 1: network and those products aren't really secure, then you might
Speaker 1: be able to get an intrusion on my network through
Speaker 1: one of these products. Uh Also, he said that anti
Speaker 1: virus software is becoming less useful, which I would also
Speaker 1: agree with, mainly because you know, back in the day
Speaker 1: when anti virus software was first invented, when McAfee had
Speaker 1: started working on anti virus software, viruses were being produced
Speaker 1: any slowly. You would get a release occasionally, maybe a
Speaker 1: few times in a month. These days, there's tons of
Speaker 1: malware being released. Lots of it tends to be uh
Speaker 1: tweaks to earlier types of malware, but you just have
Speaker 1: a sheer enormity of viruses and other types of malware
Speaker 1: hitting the Internet every single day, and anti virus software
Speaker 1: can't keep up with all of that. So it is
Speaker 1: getting to a point where anti virus software is not
Speaker 1: really doing the job that we needed to do. He
Speaker 1: also said that uh, in Belize, there is quote nothing
Speaker 1: illegal that the government there is not into end quote,
Speaker 1: essentially saying Belize government is doing all sorts of illegal things.
Speaker 1: He accused the Minister of Defense of Belize of being
Speaker 1: the largest dealer in human trafficking, for example, So lots
Speaker 1: of different accusations from him in this a m A
Speaker 1: uh there were level that believes um. McPhee also said
Speaker 1: that he thought, and this was in a separate article,
Speaker 1: that the Ashley Madison hack, that's the website that was
Speaker 1: geared to UH two people who wanted to have extramarital affairs,
Speaker 1: very famous hack there that has it's the story still unfolding,
Speaker 1: but several gigabytes of data have been released to the
Speaker 1: dark web. He said he thinks that the Ashley Masson
Speaker 1: hack wasn't really a hack, it was a leak, meaning
Speaker 1: that someone from within the company itself, either a current
Speaker 1: or former employee took that information from the company and
Speaker 1: then released it on the dark web. He also said
Speaker 1: he thought it was a solo job. He didn't think
Speaker 1: it was actually a team, although the the party claiming
Speaker 1: responsibility refers to itself as a team. And he also
Speaker 1: thought that this solo person was a woman. And he
Speaker 1: cites unnamed sources on the dark web as his sources
Speaker 1: for this information, which doesn't do a whole lot for
Speaker 1: the credibility of the claims because they can't be you know,
Speaker 1: they can't be be ratified. We can't find out if
Speaker 1: in fact this is accurate. Um. However, I will say
Speaker 1: that it is. It does make some sense for it
Speaker 1: to be an internal leak as opposed to a hack,
Speaker 1: simply because of the huge amount of information UM. It
Speaker 1: would be easier to get that from within the company
Speaker 1: than to try and access it from outside the company,
Speaker 1: particularly if you don't know how the company's UH data
Speaker 1: is structured. In fact, that was one of the arguments
Speaker 1: that McAfee made was that the person who grabbed all
Speaker 1: this information clearly knew where to look for it, and
Speaker 1: that suggested they already had worked for the company. As
Speaker 1: for the fact that he believes it to be a woman.
Speaker 1: He cites the language used in the commu nications from
Speaker 1: the Responsible Party as being that the words and language
Speaker 1: that a woman would choose, which to me sounds incredibly sexist,
Speaker 1: but again that's my own opinion. McAfee also has spoken
Speaker 1: out against smartphones. He said that they are essentially spying
Speaker 1: machines and says that somewhere around a hundred million or
Speaker 1: a hundred fifty million devices at the very least have
Speaker 1: been compromised by various types of malware, and that each
Speaker 1: key stroke can be logged, the camera can be activated remotely,
Speaker 1: and the microphone can pick up on conversations and more.
Speaker 1: He talks about not just hackers, but the government releasing
Speaker 1: malware that could allow for this sort of thing. Uh,
Speaker 1: And certainly there are types of malware out there that
Speaker 1: will do this kind of stuff if you were to
Speaker 1: install it on your your device. Whether the numbers he
Speaker 1: sites are accurate is another question, and it may be
Speaker 1: that he's being conservative now as of the recording of
Speaker 1: this update, I tried to go to the quorum x
Speaker 1: website that's the antibiotic company that McAfee founded, but it
Speaker 1: no longer appears to have an active website. Going to
Speaker 1: quorum x dot com gave me a no result both
Speaker 1: on my computer and on my my phone. And there
Speaker 1: is a Facebook page for the company, but it hasn't
Speaker 1: been updated since two thousand twelve. However, the Twitter account
Speaker 1: for the company has one recent tweet on August twenty,
Speaker 1: two thousand fifteen. It essentially was sharing a news story
Speaker 1: that related back to some of the research that was
Speaker 1: going on in Belize, or supposedly going on in Belize.
Speaker 1: And if you look at that to the next tweet
Speaker 1: on the list, there's a huge gap. The next most
Speaker 1: recent tweet dates from September two thousand twelve. So what's
Speaker 1: up with that? Who knows? Um? Most people just say
Speaker 1: that that company doesn't really exist anymore. Uh. Also, McAfee
Speaker 1: himself is quite a character. I think he revels in
Speaker 1: being a character. I don't know what the man is
Speaker 1: like personally, but he certainly seems to relish his role
Speaker 1: in the public spotlight to some degree or another. Uh.
Speaker 1: He doesn't appear to necessarily shy away from it. So UM,
Speaker 1: I don't know. I don't know that I have a
Speaker 1: better grasp on who this man is than I did
Speaker 1: back in two thousand and twelve. To be perfectly honest,
Speaker 1: his behavior is so very different from that which I
Speaker 1: am accustomed to in the people that are around me.
Speaker 1: That's very difficult to to say one way or another.
Speaker 1: I think he has um or he appears to have
Speaker 1: a very large paranoia streak going through him. Uh. I
Speaker 1: think if what he says, if he sincerely believes what
Speaker 1: he says, he's probably more paranoid than needs to be.
Speaker 1: He seems to suggest that there are lots and lots
Speaker 1: of people all out to get him all the time.
Speaker 1: And I'm not sure he's really that important in the
Speaker 1: grand scheme of things. I don't know that he's as
Speaker 1: important as he uh seems to to think he is.
Speaker 1: But that's my own personal opinion, and it's all based
Speaker 1: on things that are reported in the media. It may
Speaker 1: be that if I had a conversation with the man,
Speaker 1: I would go back and say, no, he's very much
Speaker 1: a genuine person and his fears are warranted. But based
Speaker 1: upon my limited perspective, that's kind of the feeling I
Speaker 1: end up getting um And again, you never know who
Speaker 1: to believe in these things, but it's definitely one of
Speaker 1: the strangest stories I've ever looked into with technology and
Speaker 1: definitely worth looking into it. As an update, I'll continue
Speaker 1: to keep an eye but on McAfee because I'll want
Speaker 1: to see that this mini series. There was also supposed
Speaker 1: to be a Dateline special. Uh, The Real Blacklist is
Speaker 1: a series on Dateline where they did folks. They would
Speaker 1: focus on various weird stories, crime stories, and there was
Speaker 1: going to be one on on John McAfee and it
Speaker 1: was talked about way back in March of but I
Speaker 1: haven't found any information on the actual episode, and I
Speaker 1: don't know if it just never aired or if for
Speaker 1: some reason it's not popping up in search. I don't know,
Speaker 1: So if you have come across that episode, send it
Speaker 1: to me tech stuff at how stuffworks dot com because
Speaker 1: I would love to see it. I really did look
Speaker 1: for it for this episode, but could not find the
Speaker 1: actual one. So if you happen to have that, let
Speaker 1: me know. I'll check it out because I want to
Speaker 1: hear more about this and find out if there's any
Speaker 1: other information to really kind of glean some light on
Speaker 1: this stuff. All right, hold the presses. I recorded this update.
Speaker 1: I had all that information I added in you know
Speaker 1: we threw in that at twenty minutes segment of a
Speaker 1: classic tech Stuff podcast. It was ready to go, it
Speaker 1: was in the can, it was prepared to publish, and
Speaker 1: then of course Mr McAfee goes and does something else crazy.
Speaker 1: So after I wrapped up the recording of that update,
Speaker 1: McAfee then declared that he intended to run for president
Speaker 1: of the United States in two thousand and sixteen, and
Speaker 1: that he would be founding a new party, so he
Speaker 1: would not be running as either a Democrat or a Republican. Instead,
Speaker 1: he will have a new party, which by the time
Speaker 1: this episode goes out he may have named, but as
Speaker 1: I am recording right now, it is so far an
Speaker 1: unnamed party. But I figured I had to throw that in.
Speaker 1: It would have been ridiculous to have an update on
Speaker 1: McAfee and leave out the tiny fact that he is
Speaker 1: going to run for president. And why is he running
Speaker 1: for president? Well, he says that the main reason is
Speaker 1: because he feels that the candidates running for president have
Speaker 1: been for years completely ignorant when it comes to technology,
Speaker 1: and he feels that technology is playing an ever increasingly
Speaker 1: important role in our lives, and that whomever is leader
Speaker 1: of the United States needs to have an innate understanding
Speaker 1: of technology in order to be an effective leader. Uh
Speaker 1: that sounds pretty you know, reasonable on some levels. I'm
Speaker 1: just not sure if McAfee is supposed to be the guy. Um,
Speaker 1: I don't know. He's had a pretty crazy life, as
Speaker 1: we have explored. But why do you, guys think? I'm
Speaker 1: curious to hear what your thoughts are on the subject.
Speaker 1: Right me at tech stuff at how stuff works dot com.
Speaker 1: Tell me what you think about McAfee's bid for presidency.
Speaker 1: Do you think it's sincere? Do you think it's just
Speaker 1: a cry for attention? Do you think he makes good points?
Speaker 1: Would you vote for him? I want to hear from you, guys,
Speaker 1: and now I gotta say goodbye. I will talk to
Speaker 1: you next week. I hope you have a great one
Speaker 1: and you'll hear from me again. Really So for more
Speaker 1: on this and balthands of other topics, is it how
Speaker 1: staff works dot com