John McAfee

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John McAfee
Born (1945-09-18) September 18, 1945
Scotland, United Kingdom
Nationality British / American
Alma mater Roanoke College
Occupation Computer programmer, software developer, founder of McAfee, Inc.
Known for McAfee
Spouse(s) Judy McAfee (separated), Janice Dyson (current)
Website
Who is McAfee?

John McAfee (born September 18, 1945[1]) is a British-American computer programmer and founder of McAfee, Inc.

Early life

McAfee was born in the United Kingdom and raised in Salem, Virginia, United States. He received his bachelor's degree in mathematics from Roanoke College in 1967.[2]

Ventures

Pre McAfee Associates

McAfee was employed as a programmer by NASA's Institute for Space Studies in New York City from 1968 to 1970. From there he went to Univac as a software designer and later to Xerox as an operating system architect. In 1978 he joined Computer Sciences Corporation as a software consultant. Later, while employed by Lockheed in the 1980s, McAfee received a copy of the Pakistani Brain computer virus and began developing software to combat viruses.

In 1987 McAfee founded McAfee Associates, a computer anti-virus company.[2] He was the first to distribute anti-virus software using the shareware business model.[citation needed] In 1989, he quit Lockheed and began working full-time at McAfee Associates, which he initially operated from his home in Santa Clara, California.[citation needed] The company was incorporated in Delaware in 1992, and McAfee resigned from the company in 1994.[2] Two years after McAfee Associates went public, McAfee sold his remaining stake in the company.[3]

Network Associates was formed in 1997 as a merger of McAfee Associates and Network General. This company later became Network Associates, a name it retained for seven years until it was renamed McAfee. In August 2010, Intel Corporation bought McAfee,[4][5] maintaining the separate branding, until January 2014, when it announced that McAfee related products will be marketed as Intel Security. McAfee expressed his pleasure at his name no longer being associated with the software.[6]

Post McAfee Associates

Other business ventures that he founded included Tribal Voice, which developed one of the first instant messaging programs,[7] PowWow. In 2000, John McAfee invested in and joined the board of directors of Zone Labs, makers of firewall software, prior to its acquisition by Check Point Software in 2003.[8]

In August 2009, The New York Times reported that McAfee's personal fortune had declined to $4 million from a peak of $100 million, the effect of the global financial crisis and recession on his investments.[3]

Beginning in February 2010, McAfee started a new venture in the field of bacterial quorum sensing. His company QuorumEx[9] has its headquarters in Belize and is working towards producing commercial all natural antibiotics based on anti-quorum sensing technology.[10][11]

In 2013 McAfee started a new company, Future Tense Central, to produce a secure computer network device called the D-Central.[12]

Personal life

McAfee teaches yoga[13] and has written several books about yoga.[14]

In a 2012 article in Mensa Bulletin, the magazine of American Mensa, he stated that being the developer of the first commercial anti-virus program has made him "the most popular hacking target", adding "Hackers see hacking me as a badge of honor". He added that for his own security he has other people buy his computer equipment for him, uses pseudonyms for setting up computers and logging in, and changes his IP address several times a day.[15]

In 2012, when asked if he personally uses McAfee anti-virus he replied by saying "I take it off," and that "It's too annoying."[16]

As of January 2013, McAfee is living in Portland, Oregon, intending to work on an autobiography in graphic novel form.[17]

Former cocaine baron "Boston" George Jung is rumored to be writing No Domain, McAfee's official biography.[18]

Legal issues

On April 30, 2012, McAfee's property in Orange Walk Town, Belize, was raided by the Gang Suppression Unit of the Belizean Police Department. McAfee was in bed with his girlfriend at that time who McAfee said was scared by the incident. A GSU press release stated that McAfee was arrested for unlicensed drug manufacturing and possession of an unlicensed weapon.[11][19][20][21] He was released without charge.[22] In 2012, Belize police spokesman Raphael Martinez confirmed that he was not convicted nor charged but only suspected.[23]

On November 12, 2012, Belize police started a search for McAfee as a "person of interest" in connection to the murder of American expatriate Gregory Viant Faull. Faull was found dead of a gunshot wound on November 11, 2012, at his home on the island of Ambergris Caye, the largest island in Belize.[24][25] Faull was a neighbor of McAfee.[26] In a November 2012 interview with Wired,[27] McAfee said that he has always been afraid police would kill him and thus refused their routine questions; he has since been evading the Belizean authorities.[26] Belize's prime minister Dean Barrow called McAfee "extremely paranoid, even bonkers".[28] McAfee fled Belize when he was sought for questioning concerning the murder.[29][30][31]

Vice accidentally gave away his location at a Guatemalan resort in early December 2012, when a photo taken by one of its journalists accompanying McAfee was posted with the Exif geolocation metadata still attached.[32] He then appeared publicly in Guatemala City where he attempted to seek political asylum. On December 5, 2012, McAfee was arrested for illegally entering Guatemala. Shortly after being placed under arrest, a board to review McAfee's plea for asylum was formed. The committee denied his asylum, so he was taken from his holding facility to a detention center in order to await deportation to Belize.[33] On December 6, 2012, Reuters and ABC News reported that John McAfee had two minor heart attacks in a Guatemalan detention center and was hospitalized.[34][35] His lawyer stated that McAfee had not suffered heart attacks, but he had instead suffered from high blood pressure and anxiety attacks.[36][37][38] McAfee later stated that he faked the heart attack while being held in Guatemala to buy time for his attorney to file a series of appeals that ultimately prevented his deportation to Belize, hastening the government's decision to send him back to the United States.[39] On December 12, 2012, McAfee was released from detention in Guatemala and deported to the United States.[40]

As of January 8, 2014, Belizean police have presented no new accusations, and they have not persisted in seeking McAfee's imprisonment for any of the crimes they accused him of. However, they have auctioned off McAfee's assets and his home was burned down under suspicious circumstances.[41]

See also

References

  1. ↑ "John McAfee". NNDB. Soylent Communications. Retrieved May 2, 2013. "Most newspaper sources give 1945 as his year of birth. Some book sources give 1946. General agreement is that he was born in September of one of these years, somewhere in England. The exact day (September 18) is from McAfee's Facebook page, which we have verified to be genuine." 
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Woodford, Chris (2007). Inventors and Inventions, Volume 4. Marshall Cavendish. pp. 1030–33. ISBN 0-7614-7767-5. 
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 Leonhardt, David; Fabrikant, Geraldine (August 21, 2009). "Rise of the Super-Rich Hits a Sobering Wall" (article). The New York Times. Retrieved May 7, 2010. 
  4. ↑ "Intel Completes Acquisition of McAfee". McAfee News. February 28, 2011. 
  5. ↑ "Intel in $7.68bn McAfee takeover". BBC News. August 19, 2010. 
  6. ↑ http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-25631183
  7. ↑ Pontin, Jason (May 1, 2005). "From the Editor". MIT Technology Review. Technologyreview.com. Retrieved November 15, 2012. 
  8. ↑ "Zone Labs To Get Funding, New Board Member". October 2, 2000. Retrieved November 17, 2012. 
  9. ↑ "Quorum sensing inhibitor agents from the jungles and savannas of Belize". QuorumEx.com. Retrieved November 15, 2012. 
  10. ↑ "Plagued by Lawsuits, McAfee Founder Hunts for Cures in Belize" (article). Fast Company. May 1, 2010. 
  11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 Wise, Jeff (November 8, 2012). "Secrets, Schemes, and Lots of Guns: Inside John McAfee’s Heart of Darkness". Gizmodo. 
  12. ↑ John McAfee's $100 'anti-NSA' device: 'this is coming and cannot be stopped'
  13. ↑ "Arkansas Yoga Center - John McAfee Workshop 2002". Aryoga.com. March 9, 2002. Retrieved November 15, 2012. 
  14. ↑ "John McAfee: Books". Amazon.com. Retrieved November 15, 2012. 
  15. ↑ "The M Files" (interview feature), Mensa Bulletin, January 2012, p. 21
  16. ↑ Thomson, Adam (December 7, 2012). "Four hours with John McAfee". FT Magazine. Retrieved December 10, 2012. 
  17. ↑ O'Hara, Mary Emily (January 11, 2013). "Software Millionaire John McAfee Says He Is Now Calling Portland Home". Willamette Week. Retrieved February 23, 2013. 
  18. ↑ "'Boston George' Jung Writing The Official John Mcafee Biography Titled No Domain". Impact Future Media. 
  19. ↑ "GSU says McAfee's research facility had unlicensed weapons". Channel 5 Belize. May 2, 2012. Retrieved May 4, 2012. 
  20. ↑ "Antivirus Founder, John McAfee, says politics caused GSU raid". Channel 5 Belize. May 2, 2012. Retrieved May 4, 2012. 
  21. ↑ "Belize SWAT team raids antivirus pioneer McAfee" (article). Ken Smith. May 7, 2012. 
  22. ↑ Jones, Patrick E. (November 13, 2012). "Belize police urge software founder to appear". Associated Press. Retrieved December 26, 2012. 
  23. ↑ UPDATE 2-Software pioneer McAfee says framed for murder in Belize, Reuters, November 13, 2012 
  24. ↑ Jeff Wise (November 12, 2012), Exclusive: John McAfee Wanted for Murder, Gizmodo 
  25. ↑ Jeremy A. Kaplan, Alec Liu (November 12, 2012), Exclusive: U.S. antivirus legend John McAfee wanted for murder in Belize, Fox News 
  26. ↑ 26.0 26.1 Davis, Joshua Davis (November 12, 2012), Murder Suspect John McAfee: I'm Innocent, Wired 
  27. ↑ Menchu, Sofia; Kriel, Lomi. "Guatemala detains software guru McAfee, to expel him to Belize". Reuters.com. Retrieved December 26, 2012. 
  28. ↑ Allen, Nick (November 15, 2012). "John Mcafee is 'bonkers', says Belize prime minister". The Telegraph. Retrieved November 15, 2012. 
  29. ↑ Menchu, Sofia. "Guatemala detains software guru McAfee, to expel him to Belize | Reuters". Reuters. Retrieved December 26, 2012. 
  30. ↑ "Fugitive McAfee seeks asylum in Guatemala". AFB. November 15, 2012. Retrieved December 5, 2012. 
  31. ↑ "UPDATE 4-Guatemala detains software guru McAfee, to expel him to Belize". Reuters. December 6, 2012. Retrieved December 26, 2012. 
  32. ↑ Weitzenkorn, Ben (December 4, 2012). "McAfee's Rookie Mistake Gives Away His Location". TechNewsDaily. Retrieved December 5, 2012. 
  33. ↑ Perez-Diaz, Sonia (December 6, 2012). "Software founder McAfee denied asylum in Guatemala, being deported to Belize". Global and Mail. Retrieved December 6, 2012. 
  34. ↑ Matt Gutman and Anne Laurent (December 6, 2012). "John McAfee Suffers Possible Heart Attack at Guatemala Detention Center". ABC News. Retrieved December 6, 2012. 
  35. ↑ "John McAfee: Software entrepreneur hospitalized in Guatemala after heart attacks". Chicago Tribune. December 6, 2012. Retrieved December 6, 2012. 
  36. ↑ "McAfee in hospital scare after losing asylum bid". Rappler.com. Agence France-Presse. December 7, 2012. Retrieved December 8, 2012. 
  37. ↑ Salay, Miguel (December 7, 2012). "McAfee returns to Guatemalan detention center after hospital visit". CNN. Turner Broadcasting System. Retrieved December 8, 2012. 
  38. ↑ "McAfee ontslagen uit ziekenhuis". NOS.nl. December 7, 2012. Retrieved December 26, 2012. 
  39. ↑ Zarrella, John. "John McAfee says he faked heart attack to avoid deportation to Belize". CNN. Retrieved December 14, 2012. 
  40. ↑ "UPDATE: McAfee Released, Leaving Guatemala For The U.S.". NPR. Retrieved December 12, 2012. 
  41. ↑ John McAfee escaped police and lost his fortune. Now he's enjoying art in Canada. - Jan. 8, 2014

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