John McAfee, the founder of McAfee Associates and pioneer in the antivirus field, was found dead today, June 23, 2021, of an apparent suicide in a Barcelona prison cell.
Born in 1945, the term “colorful” doesn’t begin to describe the life of McAfee. His entree into the nascent computer industry began with a degree in mathematics, followed by choice assignments at places like Xerox PARC, NASA, Univac, Booz Allen Hamilton, and Lockheed. He built up an impressive resume of programming skills until serendipity struck, in the form of one of the earliest computer viruses: the Brain virus. First found in the mid-1980s, Brain infected the boot sector of floppy disks and was originally intended as a somewhat heavy-handed form of copy protection by its authors. The virus rubbed McAfee the wrong way, and he threw himself into writing software to protect PCs from such infections. These were the roots of McAfee Associates, which opened its doors in 1987.
McAfee was done with his namesake company by 1994 and embarked on a series of business ventures with varying degrees of success, and a lifestyle that raised eyebrows as it departed more and more from the image of a tech entrepreneur. The Caribbean nation of Belize became a sort of base of operations for him, although he also claimed residency in places like Portland, Oregon, and Tennesee over the years. He was a person of interest in the 2012 death of his neighbor in Belize, but fled the country before he could be questioned by police there. He was captured in Guatemala when EXIF data in a picture taken by a reporter showed up online.
In custody in Guatemala, McAfee faked a series of heart attacks to avoid extradition back to Belize, and instead was deported to the United States. The state of Tennesee took an interest in him for DUI and weapons charges; eventually, the federal government added tax evasion charges — McAfee claimed that income taxes were illegal, and bragged openly about not paying federal taxes between 2014 and 2018, despite earning millions from consulting, speaking engagements, and selling his life story for a documentary. He used his resources to disappear for a while, but he was eventually arrested in Spain in October of 2020, after which US federal authorities tacked on cryptocurrency fraud charges and arranged for extradition back to the States.
McAfee, who famously Tweeted in October (apparently from his prison cell?) that he had no intention of killing himself, was found hanging in his prison cell today. Details are sketchy at this point, and there’s sure to be a lot of speculation about what happened, as well as discussion of the legacy of this larger-than-life pioneer of technology. We recently got a tip from someone who worked with McAfee, and who created a YouTube series detailing his dealings with him. We haven’t watched the whole series, so take it for what it’s worth, but it sure appears to be a first-hand account of one of the many people who shared John McAfee’s wild ride through life.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJ4xPBIiXpQ
Image credits: Adalberto Roque/AFP/Getty Images, Fred DuFour/AFP via Getty Images
The man was a legend, and an example (sometimes a bad one) to many. I for one will miss his antics. Btw, in October of 2020 he announced that if he was ever found dead in his cell it was involuntary.
Part of me wonders (or hopes) that this is all ruses to escape from prison.
RIP
“In custody in Guatemala, McAfee faked a series of heart attacks to avoid extradition back to Belize”
Watched too much Sanford, and son.
I dunno, that sounds like he was thinking about it.
“it” being offing himself? Or “it” being the possibility that he pissed the wrong people off and that it was likely they’d kill him and make it look like a suicide?
offing himself duh. spanish prison is a country club in comparison to the US incarceration standards. he also was qanon crazy so he probably saw an opportunity to raise hell while he noped out of life
Seems like a lot of effort to kill a guy who paid cartoonists to follow him around and make him look cool and edgy in an obvious emulation of Hunter Thompson. Why bother killing a guy who’s no threat to any intelligence agency or national security of any nation.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=37ta_E00JRU
Guess it’s time to update all those meme so it’d read “McAfee didn’t kill himself”
1992 – michaelangilo virus was where he hit it big.
It’s not a virus it’s a worm! Hack the planet!
Row row row your boat….
Rabbit? Flu Shot?
I remember that one; also my first experience with a virus. Literally killed my Zenith Z-150(?) at the time.
I hope that the Spanish police get some coins and declared his death, so that nobody is searching for him any more.
I kind of hope so as well. If he did escape, I doubt he will lay low for more than few years (if that), and we’ll find out eventually, he seems to have an ego to feed.
Darn, beat me to it.
Universe has uninstalled mcaffee, covid wins?
*Mcafee
(my kingdom for an edit button)
McAfee if you want to be completely correct.
(In names with a Mc- or Mac- prefix the initial ‘M’ is capitalised, and so is the first letter of the name, eg MacDonald, McCloud etc.)
Peter Norton is still kicking.
Anyone who met him should have been able to see that he was mentally ill, but he used his money to stay out of treatment. Humoring him and taking his money should be criminal.
I’m sad that a man is dead.
I’m NOT sad that I’ll have less…
Person: Hey did you hear about X computer thing?
Me: *research*
Me: uhh. That’s just some nonsense McAfee said. You should probably stop repeating it…
He suffered from paranoid delusions. He once said a swat team accosted him in his home, forced him to the floor and just pointed their guns at him for hours.
It really is sad that his antics were a form of entertainment for many because he has suffered (no matter how much culpability he had for his situation). He’s garnered an image of the ‘troubled genius’ but the truth is the world has lost a capable intelligent man to mental health issues.
“He once said a swat team accosted him in his home, forced him to the floor and just pointed their guns at him for hours.”
yeah, but America, so entirely likely to have happened.
What are you even talking about?!
Whatever his faults, he appears to actually have earned his money from voluntary exchange and not corruption, theft and ponzy schemes. I was a happy customer.
Even if he didn’t bribe his way out, Ragnar Danneskjöld is returning his gold in Atlantis.
it seems that he was responsible for the creation of the michaelangelo virus, having commissioned its author to do so, for which he sold the only solution. that’s one way to create a demand for your supply.
At the time’of his death, he was going to be extradited back to the US to face charges of tax evasion and cybercurrency fraud.
Didn’t he also advertise working as a pimp while in Central/South America, and offering the wares he sold gratis to law enforcement or rival gangs to get out of hot water? (It used to be part of his website’s FAQ, and he cut/pasted it as part of an interview he did with Slashdot years ago.) I’m not sure all of his activities were “voluntary exchange free of corruption or theft”.
Aunt Jemima was a real woman, she made a lot of money off her likeness
Apparently her descendance were quite angry when they took her off the box
Yeah that’s not even a little bit true
It takes about three seconds of searching to find out that’s false. You should be more careful where you get your ‘facts’ from.
All of you are pretty much just wasting time without a citation
Anna Short Harrington began her career as Aunt Jemima in ….
So yeah. The person on the bottle absolutely was a real person.
Appears it is at least partially true. https://abcnews.go.com/US/untold-story-real-aunt-jemima-fight-preserve-legacy/story?id=72293603 Where do you get your fact from?
From what accounts I’ve seen, the dude was almost on an IV drip of cocaine and other drugs and had the mental effects that stem from heavy drug use. He was in jail for almost nine months now, plenty of time for withdraw symptoms and prison life to set in and change his mind, especially given he had just lost his attempt to get his extradition to the US denied.
https://hackaday.com/2021/06/23/john-mcafees-wild-ride-is-over/#comment-6359113
https://hackaday.com/2021/06/23/john-mcafees-wild-ride-is-over/#comment-6359113
The first thing I did everytime I got a new computer was to uninstall the McAfee bloatware.
Given that he sold the company in 27 years ago, it’s kind of hard to pin that on him.
Kinda doubt it. This guy was no Epstein who could clearly incriminate lots of really powerful people. Add to that his evidently poor mental health and probably poor physical health and his age, this might plausibly have seemed the better option compared to extradition to the US.
He chose death over a few years in country club prison.
Sure. Makes sense
That’s what “report comment” is for.
There is a lot of black around the comments. It might be carbon and so might slowly moderate the nonsense.
But yes, on principle, a little more tastefulness could be exercised when discussing such matters.
Personally, I think McAntiVirusAlreadyInstalled was an interesting experiment that the universe needed to get out of its system and I was happy to be a bystander. Even though I’ve needed to click uninstall a whole bunch of times over the last 30 something years.
Fairly sure the free version was made use of at some point, or a promo version with a magazine.
Living a free life like he did, is a thorn in the eye for many. Especially those who believe in bureaucracy.
Can’t have people setting examples like that. Who’d pay taxes or go to church to pay god taxes?
Cereal, you owe me some frys man.
Little Debbie is real too. She’s Debbie McKee-Fowler and old now. On the board of directors and still keeps the same hair.
As will yours (i.e. ours) I’m thinking…
You guys should check out chapter 10 too, I get kidnapped by McAfee during a contract negotiation in this one.
https://youtu.be/CdlldAdIqXo
Finally with McAfee dead it can be all about you!! Straight-up ghoulish…
Dan: I don’t know if you update broken links on your old articles. This link: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLvVG7udlVZs-knZPVNDL3cXnh1dxuC_NZ returns “Playlist does not exist”.