Top 10 Facts & Things about John Mcafee-Antivirus Founder

Ever wondered where the MacAfee security software that protects your computer from those monsters that cause a lot of trouble to your computer came from? Well, this very article is going to quench your hunger for all the information that you ever wanted to know about the creator of the famous MacAfee anti-virus computer security software. John McAfee is an expert computer programmer and founder of McAfee.  McAfee Inc. today has become one of the biggest security technology companies in the world because of its high sales. John Mcafee is therefore the key person behind protecting your computers from virus. He is one of those persons who has over a long period of time grabbed the attention of the media and stayed in the headlines, sometimes for his great and appreciating work while at other times for his misdeeds and unlawful activities. People generally immediately relate to him for making of Mcafee anti-virus program but there are many other things with which he is intricately associated with and are unknown to the world. Some of them are as follows:

10) McAfee -not ‘only’ the McAfee anti-security software developer     

Before McAfee was known for creating the McAfee anti-virus software, he had done phenomenal work with some of the best companies in the world. He started his career as a programmer with NASA’s institute for Space Studies in New York City. He started climbing the stairs of success and joined Univac as a software designer; he further climbed to work with Xerox as an operating system architect, then worked for Computer Sciences Corporation as a software consultant and finally took a flight from Lockheed. While he was working at Lockheed, he received a Pakistani Brain computer virus, which is when his attempts to kill the virus resulted in the revolutionary discovery of the McAfee anti-virus software.

9) Hack McAfee to earn the ‘badge of honour’

In an interview to one of the magazines, McAfee very proudly reveals that hackers world over are behind him and he has become the prime hacking target in the world of hackers. Being labelled as the first creator of commercial anti-virus program, hacking McAfee’s system has become as a measure of the efficiency of a hacker. The hackers take it as a ‘badge of honour’ if they succeed in hacking his system.

8) McAfee leaves McAfee Inc.

McAfee Inc., the anti-virus software company that started with 26 employees, goes public, selling 2.6 million shares and raising more than $40 million. His highest net worth is estimated to be $100 million. In 1994, he resigned, the reason for which is estimated to be the controversy revolving around his claims about the Michelangelo computer virus that could cause a problem to as many as 5 million machines. He sells away his company stocks and is taken over by Intel for $7.7 billion in 2010 and walks out of his own company as a multi-millionaire. He then shifts from Silicon Valley to Colorado and later to Belize.

7) From anti-virus software to herbal drug venture

After leaving the company and becoming a multimillionaire, McAfee invested his money into a herbal drug venture which was later found to be illegal. When his property, Orange Walk Town in Belize was raided by the Gang Suppression Unit (GSU), it was found out that he has been operating a drug manufacturing unit that was unlicensed. It was also disclosed through some sources that he was allegedly involved in a ‘retinue of prostitutes’ and manufacturing if a bizarre and extremely dangerous designer drug known as MPVD (Aka bath salts). One of the journalists who visited him quoted that he scared the hell out of her.

6) McAfee going ‘bonkers’

McAfee literally started going nuts after his herbal drug plan failed and was repeatedly reported to show unacceptable and crazy behaviour. He was also charged for owning an unlicensed weapon. In one of the raids done by the local authorities, he was found living with a 17-year old Belizean girl and discovered “seven pump-action shotguns, one single-action shotgun, two 9-mm. pistols, 270 shotgun cartridges, 30 9-mm. pistol rounds, and twenty.38 rounds.” After fourteen hours in custody, McAfee was released without charge. People were literally scared of him as he would walk on beaches holding a gun in his hand. The prime minister in one of his statements said that McAfee is extremely paranoid and even bonkers.

5) McAfee suspected to kill his neighbor

In November 2012 McAfee’s name was listen in the list of the ‘Wanted’ people as the police suspected him to be involved in the death of his neighbor Faull. On November 11, 2012 an American expatriate Gregor Viant Faull was found dead of a gunshot wound at his home in San Pedro Town on the island of Ambergris Caye. The police suspected McAfee to be involved in this murder because few days before Faull had filed a complaint against McAfee with the mayor’s office, proclaiming that he had fired off guns and exhibited ‘roguish behavior’. Moreover, other residents confirmed that McAfee and Paull have been holding grudges against each other for quite sometime now.

4) McAfee playing the game of Tom and Jerry

From the day McAfee was informed of being suspected for Faull’s murder, he had been playing the game of cat and the mouse and constantly trying to escape the Belizean authorities. In one of his interviews McAfee said that he has always been very scared of the police and that is why he refused to acknowledge their routine questions. He escaped to Guatemala when the police was still searching for him. While he was staying at one of the Guatemalan resorts, he fortuitously disclosed his location by letting Vice post his picture with geolocation metadata still attached to it. He then demanded political asylum when he publicly appeared in the Guatemala City and was later denied for the same. He was then arrested on December 5, 2012 for entering the Guatemala City illegally.

3) McAfee and the core of 7 women

This news must have made to the headlines in the media and grabbed maximum number of eyeballs. TheMail Online in one of its articles revealed that just before McAfee fled to Belize to escape the law for being accused of murdering his neighbour Faull, he was living, or apparently ‘working’ (as McAfee said) with seven women in his house. Seems like McAfee took the concept of ‘Learning with fun’ to an altogether different level! One of his friends named ‘Paz’ is said to be responsible for getting all this women for McAfee whom McAfee claims to be ‘hired’ on the basis of the specifications and requirements stated by him, for a ‘social engineering project’. He updated his blog with the pictures of all these women and that in itself speaks a lot!

2) McAfee- A good dramatist

While McAfee was at the detention center in Gautemala, the media reported that he had suffered two mini heart attacks. However, later his lawyer clarified saying he had just been suffering from acute high blood pressure and anxiety attacks. McAfee then unveiled the real truth and said that he had faked those heart attacks in order to buy some time for his attorney to file a series of appeals that later prevented his deportation to Belize, and compelled the government to quickly send him back to the United States on December 12, 2012. After knowing this, we are bound to admit that McAfee is not only a good programmer but also a very good dramatist.

1) Hollywood’s next manhunt blockbuster: John McAfee

With the kind of stir he has created amongst the people and media, he didn’t miss to grab anyone’s attention. The interesting series of incidents that have surrounded his life have also lured the film makers and directors to make a movie on his life history. McAfee has sold the rights to Montreal based TV producer Impact Future Media to make a film or tele serial on his life story through which he intends to justify himself of not committing any of the crimes that he has been suspected of or arrested for.