11.16.12

John McAfee goes Howard Hughes

Posted in Cyberterrorism, Extremism at 11:37 am by George Smith

If you wrote about computer viruses and the anti-virus software industry in the late Eighties and early Nineties, you dealt with John McAfee, the founder of McAfee Associates.

From the wire:

To the many people who crossed his path on a tropical island in Belize, it was apparent John McAfee’s life had taken some bizarre turns in the last few years.

The anti-virus software guru, who started McAfee Associates in 1989, has been in hiding since police said they wanted to question him about the weekend murder of his neighbor, fellow American Gregory Faull, with whom McAfee had quarreled.

Despite his disappearance, McAfee, 67, has remained in contact with the media, providing a stream of colorful bulletins over his predicament, state of mind and his claim that Belize’s authorities want to kill him.

Residents of the Caribbean island of Ambergris Caye and others who know him paint the picture of an eccentric, impulsive man who gave up a career as a successful entrepreneur in the United States for a life of semi-seclusion in the former pirate haven of Belize, surrounded by bodyguards and young women.

The anti-virus industry was started by individuals you might gently call “idiosyncratic,” like McAfee.

The publisher of Virus Creation Labs, my book on that world, also fled to Belize over a decade ago.

Excerpts from the Virus Creations Labs are here.

The very distant past. Now go listen to Calling Paula Broadwell.

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