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John McAfee Tried to Trick Reporters Into Thinking He Hacked WhatsApp (gizmodo.com)

Posted by msmash on from the this-guy-for-president dept.

John McAfee, best known for creating McAfee security suite, apparently tried to trick journalists into believing that he is capable of breaking WhatsApp's end-to-end encryption and reading the private conversations. Gizmodo reports that McAfee tried to do so by sending journalists with compromised smartphones -- riddled with malicious tools such as keylogger. From the report: "[John McAfee was offering to a different couple of news organizations to mail them some phones, have people show up, and then demonstrate with those two phones that [McAfee] in a remote location would be able to read the message as it was sent across the phones," cybersecurity expert Dan Guido, who was contacted by a reporter trying to verify McAfee's claims said. "I advised the reporter to go out and buy their own phones, because even though they come in a box it's very easy to get some saran wrap and a hair dryer to rebox them."

99 comments

  1. Feeding the hand that feeds you by dotslashdot · · Score: 1, Funny

    And in completely unrelated news, it turns out all viruses were created by antivirus software companies.

  2. But where? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Gizmodo reports that McAfee tried to do so by sending journalists with compromised smartphones

    But where did he send them?

    1. Re:But where? by msauve · · Score: 4, Funny

      You didn't even read the full summary... "to a different couple of news organizations..."

      --
      "National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
    2. Re:But where? by TangoMargarine · · Score: 0

      Gizmodo reports that McAfee tried to do so by sending journalists with compromised smartphones -- riddled with malicious tools such as keylogger. From the report:

      "to a different couple of news organizations" is in a completely different sentence. Either the sentence as written is missing a direct object, or we got an extraneous "with" lodged in there somehow.

      --
      Unity? Screw that: XFCE. Slashdot Beta? Screw that: SoylentNews. Australis? Screw that: Pale Moon. UX developers DIAF
    3. Re:But where? by msauve · · Score: 1

      Whoosh.

      --
      "National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
    4. Re:But where? by TangoMargarine · · Score: 0

      To be whooshed there had to have been a joke.

      --
      Unity? Screw that: XFCE. Slashdot Beta? Screw that: SoylentNews. Australis? Screw that: Pale Moon. UX developers DIAF
    5. Re:But where? by msauve · · Score: 1

      Don't you ever wonder why your friends are laughing and you just don't understand? It's true, Aspies don't recognize sarcasm, and have poor social skills.

      --
      "National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
    6. Re:But where? by TangoMargarine · · Score: 1

      Don't you ever wonder why your friends are laughing and you just don't understand?

      Not really.

      It's true, Aspies don't recognize sarcasm

      Ah, the good old Internet standby of calling anyone who disagrees with you illiteral/mentally ill. So what mental disorder causes you to be rude to everyone you meet online?

      have poor social skills.

      Not projecting at all...

      --
      Unity? Screw that: XFCE. Slashdot Beta? Screw that: SoylentNews. Australis? Screw that: Pale Moon. UX developers DIAF
    7. Re:But where? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > Ah, the good old Internet standby of calling anyone who disagrees with you illiteral/mentally ill.

      Since this keeps happening to you, maybe the problem is with the common denominator and not the internet.

    8. Re:But where? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory

      https://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/03/19

      captcha: damned

    9. Re:But where? by Ol+Olsoc · · Score: 1

      Ah, the good old Internet standby of calling anyone who disagrees with you illiteral/mentally ill. So what mental disorder causes you to be rude to everyone you meet online?

      Whoa there cowboy - Asperger's is not in any way shape or form mentally ill.

      They are differently abled, and some of those abilities are magnitudes more proficient that "normal" people.

      And normal ain't all that anyhow.

      --
      The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
    10. Re:But where? by TangoMargarine · · Score: 0

      Wow, 3 whole posts and already #31 on his foe list. I never knew it was so easy.

      --
      Unity? Screw that: XFCE. Slashdot Beta? Screw that: SoylentNews. Australis? Screw that: Pale Moon. UX developers DIAF
    11. Re:But where? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Don't you ever wonder why your friends are laughing and you just don't understand? It's true, Aspies don't recognize sarcasm, and have poor social skills.

      I'm aspie (diagnosed) and I got the joke. You seem to confuse HFA diagnosis with "no sense of humour" or "not very bright" which kinda puts you into the latter category. Oh how /. continues to decend into bottom feeders, gone are the knowledgeable who know better than such sweeping generalisations and uneducated statements linking unrelated things just because they occur together. I know plenty of neurotypicals who don't get the jokes, hint: it isn't because they're neurotypical.

    12. Re:But where? by Coren22 · · Score: 1

      Aspergers is in the DSM under Autism Spectrum Disorders. What would you call it? If it isn't a mental illness, than what is a mental illness?

      Coming from someone who has this disorder...

      --
      APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
    13. Re:But where? by Ol+Olsoc · · Score: 1

      Aspergers is in the DSM under Autism Spectrum Disorders. What would you call it? If it isn't a mental illness, than what is a mental illness?

      Coming from someone who has this disorder...

      If you want to call yourself mentlly ill, have at it. I've worked with and was friends with a number of Engineers who were Aspies". They weren't social butterflies. But they were good engineers. They lived, ate and breathed with us, just like everyone else, they didn't commit crimes. About the worst was there was a level a level of curiousity and concern about their difference. I refuse to call a highly competent and focused person as mentally ill. Differently and sometimes superiorly abled is what I would define aspies as.

      It's actually a positive outlook - and maybe that's why I got along so well, and vice versa. I recognized their contribution.

      --
      The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
  3. Good for press by dejitaru · · Score: 1

    I used McAfee in the past, but I believe that was after John and the company parted. Besides that I never heard of him or read any news about him. For the past few years though I keep getting articles popping up about him. I have to give the guy credit for getting into the spotlight, at least he's more entertaining to read about than your standard celebrity.

    1. Re:Good for press by rudy_wayne · · Score: 1

      I used McAfee in the past, but I believe that was after John and the company parted.

      John left the company in 1994.

    2. Re:Good for press by dejitaru · · Score: 1

      Yeah, i figured I could have googled that... but meh....

    3. Re:Good for press by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      I used McAfee in the past, but I believe that was after John and the company parted.

      John left the company in 1994.

      John left reality about the same time

    4. Re: Good for press by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Prove he was ever actually in reality...

    5. Re: Good for press by sg_oneill · · Score: 0

      McCafee is the Donald Trump of Infosec. Always amusing to read about but proof that some things just don't react well with Cocaine

      --
      Excuse the Unicode crap in my posts. That's an apostrophe, and slashdot is busted.
  4. Con-Man by GrooveNeedle · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It seems like he's trying to be a con-man, and doing a real bad job of it. I'm not sure if any of that is intentional, or it's just the voices in his head making him do asinine things.

    1. Re:Con-Man by ITRambo · · Score: 1

      An imaginary Insightful upvote for you since I don't have mod points at the moment.

    2. Re:Con-Man by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      With somebody like him, is there a difference?

    3. Re:Con-Man by Desler · · Score: 2

      That's what happens after taking bath salts.

    4. Re:Con-Man by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Trying to be? Are you new to the "anti-virus" industry?

    5. Re:Con-Man by Gravis+Zero · · Score: 1

      It seems like he's trying to be a con-man, and doing a real bad job of it.

      the truth is we don't know what he was trying to do. maybe he was trying to point out that the media isn't tech savvy and it blew up in his face or maybe he did it for the lulz, we really don't know. the only thing we do know is that he's not a credible source of information.

      --
      Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
    6. Re:Con-Man by OakDragon · · Score: 1

      He successfully tricked them into thinking he's a Presidential candidate.

      --
      Dark Reflection
    7. Re:Con-Man by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      People want to blame drugs for his behaviour, I suppose that's as good an excuse as any... I tend to lean toward your explanation, however. The man is just a bad con, a _terribly_ bad con. Script kiddies made more convincing claims back in the day. Hell, if he wants a contemporary example of a _decent_ con man, look at Steve Gibson. Still appears on Leo LaPorte's Twit network quite often as a self-described "security expert..." This despite the fact that:

      - the only major software he ever wrote, Spinrite, was a disk maintenance application
      - he claimed to have "invented" SYN cookies in a grandiose press release for what he referred to as the "GENESIS Project." When the entirety of the Internet pointed out that SYN cookies had been implemented in the Linux kernel several _YEARS_ earlier? He claimed that was a coincidence, that his invention was "in parallel" with one seven years old
      - he frequently touts the lack of raw socket support in Windows XP as being his own doing, having threatened that having such a powerful IP stack in a consumer operating system would literally mean "the end of the Internet..." By no small coincidence, he was advertising Shields Up! at the same time, a website he hosted that performed no more of a port scan than nmap would have.

      McAfee, in comparison, has been quite vocal about the fact that his claims about the iPhone hack were for "attention," the supposed cadre of hackers at his command doesn't exist, yet he still gets the headlines. At some point you have to wonder who's making money off it all.

      Somehow I doubt manishs or BIZX will be addressing that one publicly any time soon.

    8. Re:Con-Man by Falos · · Score: 1

      I'm gonna say all of the above is true, simultaneously. You could debate about whether he's "a joke", or how much so, but legit or not his shenanigans are good for a laugh, which is more than I can say about the rackets and exploitation and malice of most Tech/Corporate headlines.

    9. Re:Con-Man by Raenex · · Score: 0

      He successfully tricked them into thinking he's a Presidential candidate.

      So did Trump, but he actually got his party's nomination. I can't imagine McAfee being nominated by the Libertarian Party.

    10. Re:Con-Man by sumdumass · · Score: 1

      It seems to me that he was trying to show how easy it is to social engineer a defeat to security or the appearance of security.

    11. Re:Con-Man by OakDragon · · Score: 1

      He successfully tricked them into thinking he's a Presidential candidate.

      So did Trump, but he actually got his party's nomination. I can't imagine McAfee being nominated by the Libertarian Party.

      That's what we said about Trump!

      --
      Dark Reflection
    12. Re:Con-Man by Midnight_Falcon · · Score: 1

      He's trolling -- using the same technique Craig Wright used to scam Gavin into thinking that he was Satoshi Nakamoto -- the "brand new computer" trick. It's a very relevant and snarky troll based on current events, which is what he's been doing with his youtube videos etc. He's not insane, just eccentric and happy to troll on people.

    13. Re:Con-Man by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      With the state of IT journalism today I'm not sure why he bothered with malware in the first place. He could send them an iPhone with a new account he created, have them write a bunch of stuff then download the iCloud backups with the credentials of the account. I'm pretty sure at least a few of these journalists would not switch accounts and that's enough to get a few headlines.

    14. Re:Con-Man by XxtraLarGe · · Score: 1

      So did Trump, but he actually got his party's nomination. I can't imagine McAfee being nominated by the Libertarian Party.

      He won't. Gary Johnson has a pretty commanding lead. Still, even if he did, I'd vote for him before Clinton or Trump, because no matter how crazy he is, he's still better than either of them.

      --
      Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
    15. Re: Con-Man by Ilgaz · · Score: 1

      I agree that Gibson is more like a tabloid in security business but he did one thing good, he made ordinary people aware of the risks involved when they wonder around with open ports exposed to the internet. I believe the language he uses with all that sensational terms somehow made Joe Public install a free firewall to his Windows machine, that is a good thing.

      He also made people, ordinary non technical people aware of spyware.

      He claims some crazy things that is a fact and we all laugh when someone codes a GUI app in pure ASM& brags about it but let's all think about the dark ages when GRC.com was founded.

      I mean he did more good than harm.

  5. who else is up for this? by nimbius · · Score: 5, Funny

    I wanna see a cartoon or perhaps live action series where John McAfee and Steve Ballmer team up together for zany adentures. these guys are like the bill and ted of modern technology.

    --
    Good people go to bed earlier.
    1. Re:who else is up for this? by raftpeople · · Score: 1

      Holy F! that would be damn funny!

    2. Re:who else is up for this? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      These two guys are each flakier than a New England blizzard...

    3. Re:who else is up for this? by eam · · Score: 1

      I imagine them getting into trouble every edition, with Steve Wozniak secretly swooping in, saving the day, and rescuing them each time. They would, of course, believe that they were the true heroes.

  6. ANDROID STUDIO MALWARE HOST by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Update the IDE Eeeemediately.

  7. WTF by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Gizmodo reports that McAfee tried to do so by sending journalists with compromised smartphones -- riddled with malicious tools such as keylogger.

    I can't parse this sentence.

  8. Captain's log : Stardate 4351.5 by Thud457 · · Score: 1

    "App & App, whatsAPP?!"
    -- Kara, frustrated by the constant inquiries about Spock's APP

    --

    the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff

  9. Sounds familiar by sims+2 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    McAfee Says He Lied About iPhone Hacking Method To Get Public Attention
    https://apple.slashdot.org/sto...

    --
    Minimum threshold fixed. Thanks!
    1. Re:Sounds familiar by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      He probably killed his neighbor too. Not the most trustworthy guy..

    2. Re:Sounds familiar by Falos · · Score: 1

      He probably THINKS he killed his neighbor and scuttled his speedboat just to hide the evidence.

      Fortunately the apologetic flowers he sends the widow every year are black, so Bill is more confused than suspicious.

  10. it worked by phantomfive · · Score: 1

    Cybersecurity Ventures has an article claiming it McAfee actually did it. So he managed to trick at least some of the reporters he talked to. Worth mentioning this is similar to the bitcoin/Craig Wright media trick.

    Here is a screenshot in case they realize their mistake and remove it later.

    --
    "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    1. Re:it worked by phantomfive · · Score: 5, Insightful

      John McAfee is mildly insane, but he gives me more entertainment per word uttered than most of the other people you see in the media. So keep going John, I'm waiting to see what weird thing you pull next.

      --
      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    2. Re:it worked by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So he managed to trick at least some of the reporters he talked to.

      Did you read the article? The phones he sent had a keylogger, yes, and that is how he accomplished the hack, but the phones were NOT rooted. Now the real question is if physical possession of the device is a requirement for installing the keylogger, (in which case not a very high level risk), or if it can be loaded through via malicious website, (much higher level of risk). Unfortunately the article doesn't go into enough detail.

      The real mistake here wasn't that McAfee sent compromised phones - that was necessary to demonstrate the vulnerability - but rather that he apparently didn't communicate the nature of the demo adequately.

    3. Re:it worked by AdamThor · · Score: 1, Flamebait

      Exactly! Someone should hire him to consult about some technology issue, and make a reality tv series about it. You might not even have to tell him you're doing it!

      "All the cameras? Well, Mr. McAfee we take security very seriously here at Setec Astronomy."

      --
      -- "Oh. This guy again."
    4. Re:it worked by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Cybersecurity Ventures has an article claiming it McAfee actually did it. So he managed to trick at least some of the reporters he talked to.

      Is this really a trick? Compromised endpoints are a legitimate risk. Both via fakeware - repackaging of legit apps with malware payloads - and zero-days. As strong end-to-end encryption becomes the norm it is only logical that we are going to see an increase in endpoint exploits.

    5. Re:it worked by phantomfive · · Score: 1

      . Now the real question is if physical possession of the device is a requirement for installing the keylogger, (in which case not a very high level risk), or if it can be loaded through via malicious website, (much higher level of risk). Unfortunately the article doesn't go into enough detail

      I don't know how he did it, but if you have ADB access, you can install a key-logger (I used to do that for my job). Another option is rooting a phone, install the key-logger, then unroot it.

      --
      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    6. Re:it worked by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Kooky little scamp. Well there's the occasional murder, but he's pretty entertaining.

    7. Re:it worked by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      John McAfee is mildly insane...

      So he would still be a better President than the fully nuts John Miller? Sorry I mean Mr Donald Trump.

  11. Grammar Much? by thewolfkin · · Score: 1

    Gizmodo reports that McAfee tried to do so by sending journalists with compromised smartphones -- riddled with malicious tools such as keylogger.

    Did someone a word here? What is this trying to say?

    --
    Just another second banana
    1. Re:Grammar Much? by zero_out · · Score: 1

      offering to a different couple of news organizations to mail them

      I RTFA, and this is an accurate quote. The grammar in article is as bad as the grammar in the summary.

    2. Re:Grammar Much? by MoFoQ · · Score: 1

      It IS a part of gawker media after all, where the bar is so low, it's just a pipe placed on the ground.

  12. Failure Abounds by cyriustek · · Score: 3, Insightful

    John McAfee is doing everything he can to and and be relevant in today's society, apart from actually creating anything and doing something productive.

    * He is a failed Libertarian candidate for President
    * He failed to decrypt iPhones for the FBI although he said he can do it.
    * He failed in decrypting whatsapp.
    * The software he originally wrote is a failed idea. (Who ever thought A/V signatures were a good idea other than a mad man.)

    It is too bad he could not move back to South America since he is now a known fraud and dog killer.

    1. Re:Failure Abounds by p.g.king · · Score: 1

      (Who ever thought A/V signatures were a good idea other than a mad man.)

      I guess the question is who is the madder, the person with that good idea, or the people who kept buying it and the people who bought out the concept making the original mad man pretty wealthy.

    2. Re:Failure Abounds by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      * He is a failed Libertarian candidate for President

      He's one of several people running for the Libertarian nomination, he is not the candidate. The LP has not had its convention yet this year so hasn't picked a candidate yet.

    3. Re:Failure Abounds by Dunbal · · Score: 1

      Although I think McAffee is a lunatic and probably a murderer, even a broken clock is right twice a day. It was hilarious to read about all the naysayers on "tech sites" denying that the iphone could be hacked. While I'm not sure McAfee has the skill to do it, he was right in that it could be done. If your phone can decrypt stuff and display it on the screen for you, then it must have a copy of the key (or keys) somewhere. There is no such thing as a "secure device" if you have physical access to it. There is only a spectrum of insecure devices ranging from least insecure to completely insecure. And of course he was proven right, and all those anonymous apple fanboys have yet more egg on their face.

      --
      Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
    4. Re:Failure Abounds by eumoria · · Score: 2

      Didn't se say, quote, "I would eat my shoe on the Neil Cavuto show if we could not break the encryption on the San Bernardino phone."

      Shit, at least he could do that and we could get some entertainment out of him.

    5. Re:Failure Abounds by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That's not how non-reversible math/encryption works.
      Typically you compare a hash of the entered pass to a hash of the old pass. The pass is never stored. At least if it's done right.

      More than likely the iphone was hacked by an exploit (could have been a hardware exploit, perhaps involving soldering components, etc).

      Aside from that nitpick, the rest of your point is still valid.

    6. Re:Failure Abounds by Dunbal · · Score: 1

      That's not how non-reversible math/encryption works.

      Computers are machines. Machines follow instructions. Nothing magical happens. If you have access to the machine you can read the instructions the machine is reading and better yet, you can get it to follow your own instructions. You don't have to brute force the strongly encrypted key if you can brute force the weak password. If you're watching the conversation the phone is having with itself, at some point it has to decide if the password you fed it was good or not. And then you've got the key. The proof of course, is that the phone was eventually hacked. People get so confused in the minutiae of encryption they forget the big picture - not seeing the forest for the trees. There is NOTHING man has made that he cannot unmake. NOTHING.

      --
      Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
    7. Re:Failure Abounds by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      My understanding is that the hack was something like that, to decap the chip and directly read the relevant data. Except it's a very delicate physical process and you pretty much need to know where to look in advance.

    8. Re: Failure Abounds by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      7.7 billion ... whens the last time anyone on this line even came close...

  13. Mr. McAfee: Like Heavy Metal? apk by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    See subject from Me to you: "Old engineer (social in this case imo) sittin' in the shade (of this) stunned w/ rhythm drivers made (TCP/IP stack + diskcache) http://www.bing.com/search?q=%... "

    * :)

    APK

    P.S.=> Better luck next time & as for me? Well, see above... apk

  14. Al-Queda Calls for the Execution of John McAfee by bkmoore · · Score: 4, Funny

    In other news, Al-Queda's calling for the execution of John McAfee to damage the U.S. economy and expose millions of computers to viruses.

    1. Re:Al-Queda Calls for the Execution of John McAfee by The-Ixian · · Score: 1

      I can almost see their collective hands rubbing together in front of goatee'd pointy faces...

      --
      My eyes reflect the stars and a smile lights up my face.
    2. Re:Al-Queda Calls for the Execution of John McAfee by freeze128 · · Score: 1

      Just to be safe, they should probably also kill Peter Norton.

  15. The problem here is... by pruedz · · Score: 1

    ...Is not to try to be a smartass, is to think that everyone else is stupid.

  16. Huh? by jdavidb · · Score: 1

    I don't understand what they are trying to say here: "Gizmodo reports that McAfee tried to do so by sending journalists with compromised smartphones -- riddled with malicious tools such as keylogger." What? He sent compromised smartphones to journalists? He sent messages to journalists who already had compromised smartphones? keyloggerS?

    --
    Secession is the right of all sentient beings.
    1. Re:Huh? by funwithBSD · · Score: 1

      I *think* they are saying he sent compromised phones for them to use.

      Which is totally legit, hacking the end user is easier than hacking the technology, and often more effective.

      --
      Never answer an anonymous letter. - Yogi Berra
  17. LOL: Forgot your "theme song"... apk by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    See subject & WHERE that line came from (cover yes, but good) "Johnny Be Good" https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

    APK

    P.S.=> Regarding https://entertainment.slashdot... ... apk

    1. Re:LOL: Forgot your "theme song"... apk by 110010001000 · · Score: 0

      I'd pay to see a conversation between APK and John McAfee.

    2. Re:LOL: Forgot your "theme song"... apk by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Keep APK away from his meds for a few hours and it could easily happen. He already carries on conversations with himself all over Slashdot; pretending to be McAfee wouldn't be a stretch.

    3. Re:LOL: Forgot your "theme song"... apk by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      2 random word generators?

  18. clickbait article? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    So the reporter is drawing own conclusions about why, and how McAfee is sending compromised phones...
    And in the end the truth is word by word...
    "I made it absolutely CLEAR that was was NOT a WhatsApp issue. It was a Google issue."
    By McAfee....

    So why write a shitload of misinformation if you as a "reporter" already got the truth behind the story!?

  19. Signatures WERE a good idea with 286 CPU, 512K RAM by raymorris · · Score: 4, Insightful

    > Who ever thought A/V signatures were a good idea other than a mad man.

    They WERE a good idea. He did that in 1987. Intel was selling a lot of 286 processors. The same year IBM announced their first 386 computer, the PS/2, which came with half a MB of RAM and supported of to 4MB if you maxed out the upgrades.

    A year earlier the first virus for PC compatibles had come out, called Brain. By 1987 there were several viruses, perhaps a dozen or more. Nothing that caused destruction over a network, though, that wouldn't happen until year-end.

    If you're trying to identify a dozen or so programs, and you have maybe 2KB to spare, a simple lookup table of signatures seems like a pretty good way to do it.

  20. Re:Remind me again by sexconker · · Score: 1

    Remind me again - why the fuck do we need Unicode for a fucking apostrophe and why can't asshats accept the superior straight ' instead of the ugly angled "smart quote" style abominations?

  21. First line of the summary needs some work by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    John McAfee, best known for being a crazy drug addict

    FTFY. McAfee's not best known for antivirus, he's best known for the crazy things he's done with the money he made making antivirus software.

  22. Distraction by axewolf · · Score: 1

    Distraction from the fact that he was suspected of murder

  23. Ah, the Craig "I'm totally Satoshi" Wright gambit by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I guess McAfee is scraping the bottom of the barrel.

  24. Re:Remind me again by barbariccow · · Score: 1

    Microsoft Word automatically converts the apostrophe into their own code-page smart quote, originally to make things incompatible. You can tell who writes stuff in Word and pastes it. I don't understand why, but a whole lot of people do this.. You wouldn't believe how many times I've had to manually fix people making lists in word, pasting them into SQL directly, which crashes the application (rightfully assuming) the data to be ascii..

  25. Re:Remind me again by sexconker · · Score: 1

    It's one of the increasingly-many "features" I have to kill off in the Office suite. But, ideally, your application shouldn't be crashing when encountering malformed data. Realistically though the easier solution is to prevent the bad data from getting in. Why not replace any inserted data with an ASCII equivalent? Map common characters to sane characters, and replace anything not explicitly handled with a question mark, or simply remove it. Run this as a trigger on INSERT and UPDATE. As an added bonus, scold the user whenever it has to do a replacement. And as always, make sure your triggers handle multiple rows!

  26. saran wrap by GodWasAnAlien · · Score: 2

    saran wrap?

    Do people really seek a specific brand of plastic wrap?

    The best brand of plastic wrap, of course, is Cling-On brand plastic wrap.

    1. Re:saran wrap by freeze128 · · Score: 1

      Any kind of cling-wrap is wrong. What you want is SHRINK WRAP. If you received a phone in a box wrapped in household kitchen plastic wrap, you would suspect immediately that it had already been opened.

  27. He's a haxx0r, baby by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    so why won't you jail him?

  28. At this point, I have to wonder by jenningsthecat · · Score: 1

    Did McAfee really write that anti-virus software? Or was it written by a Bangkok prostitute?

    --
    'The Economy' is a giant Ponzi scheme whose most pitiable suckers are the youngest among us and the yet-unborn.
    1. Re:At this point, I have to wonder by LordWabbit2 · · Score: 1

      It was probably written while banging a prostitute.

      --
      There are three kinds of falsehood: the first is a 'fib,' the second is a downright lie, and the third is statistics.
  29. There is no "asshat" emoji. It's not peecee. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Of course, even if there was, it wouldn't help much since now you'd have to filter the incoming unicode against asshat software genererating asshat private range code points. While at it, possibly canonicalize the input, a concept that doesn't exist in standard unicode and that itself can lead to Interesting Times[tm] as we've seen with spotify account hijackings, but without which you have so many ways to encode the same thing that something as simple as replying might well become a tricky mess depending on how well a particular replyer's browser supports unicode. And then there's the Fun With Unicode Fonts[tm]. And the undeniably useful ability of any random AC to dump screenfuls of "RECTANGLE INDICATING CHARACTER LACKING IN CURRENT FONT" to varying subsets of hapless slashdot readers. In varying numbers depending on the font and the correctness of the unicode handling, which might well take up fully half of the program just like it already takes fully half of the standard C library. For an incomplete implementation lacking useful and important notions like above "canonicality" thing. And so on, and so forth. So, nothing but upsides there, then.

    Me, I think unicode is like socialism: In theory the idea is nice enough if you squint hard enough, but in practice the starry-eyed naïveté at its core means the idea is really unworkably bankrupt and prone to take the rest of the thing you're building with it. Wait, what, did I just call all the unicode geeks socialists? More like "socialist-like", but you get the idea, yeah.

  30. Re:Remind me again by TheCarp · · Score: 1

    Seems this could be a very simple input filter when a story is submitted. Could even generate a warning and shit.

    --
    "I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
  31. McAfee is a fuck-up by Dog-Cow · · Score: 2

    McAfee should suffer death by a million bee stings. He is an attention whore who deserves the worst the Universe has ever seen.

  32. You can't pay for this kind of entertainment by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    See subject: Our conversation where you say my ware's malware & Google's Virustotal shows otherwise https://mobile.slashdot.org/co... & YOU HAD TO "EAT YOUR WORDS" - & it shut you up fast... of course, that shows you have GOOD MANNERS, in that you didn't continue to talk with your mouth full (as you ate your words, lol).

    * :)

    APK

    P.S.=> Always a pleasure dusting "lesser mortals" like you... it's just (& you just KNOW I've just GOTTA say it, now don't you? Ah, but of COURSE you do) "too, Too, TOO EASY - just '2ez'" & it always is vs. "ne'er-do-wells" such as yourself... mere wannabes! apk

    1. Re:You can't pay for this kind of entertainment by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Arctic White Owls by Birth-Control survive: the female does not go into
      heat until she sees three full months of frozen food for her young ones to
      survive! Putting to shame our welfare-state, with its untrained masses,
      enslaved by Marxist half-truth hate! Beavers, by family teamwork, stay
      alive! Building dams, surviving the toughest winters without any welfare
      help to enjoy life! Bees, once each year, drop three percent drone
      parasites from hive! How else can life ascend-evolve-survive?

  33. Says the unidentifiable ac worm... apk by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    See subject: Obvious I crushed you before as I did 110010001000 https://yro.slashdot.org/comme... & https://yro.slashdot.org/comme... where he had to "EAT HIS WORDS" lol!

    * Hence my subject-line above...

    (You WISH you were me & could create tools of such usefulness to users online giving them more speed, security, reliability + anonymity from 1 SINGLE native file you already have doing MORE with far less http://www.bing.com/search?q=%... )

    APK

    P.S.=> You "ne'er-do-well" NO TALENT or balls losers are ALL THE SAME - easy to blow away w/ facts & once I've done that all "your kind" does is troll me by unidentifiable ac posts vs. your "registered 'luser'" accounts on /. (as you know I'll toss your FAILS back in your faces)... apk

  34. Pump and dump by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    McAfee is pumping a public company, ticker MGT, that he reversed mergered into.