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Interview: Ask John McAfee What You Will
John McAfee was best known as a software designer and founder of the computer anti-virus company McAfee Associates until his saga in Belize began. McAfee's works on producing natural antibiotics commercially in Belize was quickly overshadowed by police raids, murder allegations, and a month of evading Belizean authorities while maintaining his innocence. He was eventually captured and deported back to the United States in December 2012 without being charged with any crime. "Boston George" Jung (a man who has lived quite an unusual life himself) has been tapped to write McAfee's biography titled, No Domain. Now that things have mostly settled down, John has agreed to answer your questions. As usual, ask as many as you'd like, but please, one per post.
Why did you run if you had nothing to hide?
While you were moving around, Vice.com got to spend time with you. If memory serves me, it was later revealed that the image they uploaded with you had GPS data that you then claimed to be spoofed. Coincidentally the news styled documentary they were going to do with you never seemed to surface ... now that things have died down can you give more context to that whole situation?
My work here is dung.
Doesn't it bother you that your name is being used to peddle one of the worst anti-virus products on the market? Often it comes pre-installed on computers as a 30 day trial (crapware), with dire warnings flashed up in the event that the user fails to pay (scareware). The performance hit it brings is huge. Would you advise anyone else to name their product/company after themselves in this way?
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
If you had to relive the whole debacle, what would you do differently the second time around.
Almost exactly one year ago your dog was killed (my sympathies), your passport was confiscated and your house searched by a Gang Suppression Unit (GSU) while you lived in Belize. Why not publicly name names and provide as much detailed evidence as possible to reveal this horrible corruption and abuse of something that is supposed to stop crime? Who was it that tried to extort political money from you? Is there anyway to verify?
My work here is dung.
If I understand correctly, this whole episode began because a local politician visited you in your home and he had the expectation (for whatever reason) that you would pay him USD $30,000 as some kind of protection money for his campaign and your expectation was that politicians are supposed to work for people and not the other way around. Is this a reasonable characterization? If so, how do you think such a large missmatch in expectations came about? Do you think you were overly naive? Or is the political environment in Belize changing? I can easily believe that this might be the normal expected way that people do business down there based on other things I've heard, but I really have no idea. Now that you've had time to reflect, what would you say was responsible for the conflict in the first place?
You've been quoted as partial to freebase MDPV:
Do you still stick to this opinion? Are you sure it's the finest drug ever conceived? If you're unwavering in that view, what would you rank as the second or third drugs in the chemical hall of fame?
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Do you still believe in the wonders of the drugs known as "bath salts" which you wrote so many glowing reviews about?
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
I am not interested the least in what John McAfee has to say about anything, nor reading what will ultimately be spun into a John McAfee publicity puff piece by the Dice Masters.
"Boston George" Jung (a man who has lived quite an unusual life himself) has been tapped to write McAfee's biography titled, No Domain.
I don't get it. Jung is a convicted drug smuggler. You have had no such charges ever filed against you (to my knowledge) by the United States so, if nothing more than a publicity stunt, why did you pick him to write your biography? If you feel you are wrongly accused, I can understand why you would pick someone wrongly accused to write your biography -- they can relate. But George Jung was certainly a key part of Pablo Escobar's deadly and pervasive criminal organization. You are (again, to my knowledge) far from that so why bait the readers with that author as a link? I have had very little associations with you and illegal drug activity but now I think you view yourself as a modern George Jung, am I wrong in making this assumption?
My work here is dung.
What are your thoughts on using a HOSTS file to help minimize your exposure to computer malware and protect your system? This seems to be a topic of HUGE debate here at SlashDot. Here's hoping an expert can chime in for once!
Thanks, and, Bob Bless
I'm very interested in hearing about the natural antibiotics. Can you please describe some general background about how you became interested in the project and what happened to the project?
Is it pronounced MAC-a-fee or Muh-CAF-ee?
Have you ever considered writing your own filesystem? If so what features would it have?
How widespread is it for companies to actually be the creators of the virusses just to create fear/demand for their antivirus products? ( By creating a virus, I mean everything from naming of non-existent virusses right through to actually developing real virusses).