Digital technologies are increasingly penetrating into various spheres of human activity. Along with this, there was a need to protect information from intruders. American programmer John McAfee was the first person to implement computer protection against unauthorized access by creating the first antivirus.
Now a programmer-entrepreneur is actively promoting digital currencies as a safe and transparent way of settlements.
Youth McAfee
John was born on September 15, 1946. A few years later, his family from the British county of Gloucestershire emigrated to the United States, in the small town of Salem, Virginia.
When John turned 15, his father, suffering from alcoholism, committed suicide, and the young man had to somehow settle in life. Having the makings of mathematics, he is hired by a company that produced one of the first varieties of software - perforated cards. Here he comprehends the basics of programming. Then, at Missouri Pacific Railroad, he compiles algorithms for the operation of railway equipment according to the train schedule.
At the same time, John begins to use psychedelic drugs and, in order not to cause an accident, decides to quit.
At the origins of computer security
Having moved to Silicon Valley, John McAfee is developing software for UNIVAC.
Drug addiction is moving into a new phase. To stimulate performance, he switches to cocaine. Then, while working at NASA, he was confronted with the first virus written by Pakistani programmers, the Alvi brothers. According to legend, a malicious program written for MS-DOS was supposed to harm the computers of scammers stealing software from their company. But it so happened that the virus spread throughout the United States, causing damage to 18 thousand computers.
This circumstance inspired the programmer John McAfee to write the first antivirus program, and in 1989 he created the company McAfee Associates, which produces such utilities. He successfully conducts a PR campaign to advertise a new product, promising users who do not use protection an early apocalypse related to the Michelangelo malware.
In 1990, McAfee Associates was almost the only one in its segment. The competition was only Peter Norton Computing, which later became known as Symantec. Then McAfee Associates enters the stock market, having received multibillion-dollar profit.
After 2 years, John is selling his share of the company in the amount of $ 100 million.
Heaven camp
Having sold his Microsoft business, McAfee began to try his hand at new types of business. By that time, he had developed a certain position in life, which he called "Relational Yoga." He then released a series of books describing this philosophy. Along with this, he builds several runways in Arizona and opens a hang gliding school called Sky Gypsies. McAfee arranges flying fun on motorized hang gliders. Sometimes the number of participants reaches 200 people. Before flying, they make up a route with a length of about 100 km, then fly it, trying not to rise above 10 meters.
The activities of the flight school ended in tragedy. John McAfee's nephew crashed in one of the voyages. Together with him, his passenger Robert Gilson died, who in the past was himself a pilot of the US Air Force.
Gilson's family sued McAfee for entrusting the life of a person to an inexperienced pilot, as a result of which they sued $ 5 million.
Relocation to Belize
In 2008, an economic crisis swept the world, striking both ordinary people and celebrities with multi-million dollar fortunes. He did not bypass the programmer either. The collapsed real estate market reduced John McAfee's fortune to $ 4 million.
John decides to move to Central America with the aim of creating a plant for the production of medicines based on plant materials.
The basis was taken by the development of biologists Greensberg and Basler, which describes the "sense of quorum" in bacteria. According to her, microorganisms communicate and coordinate actions using signaling molecules. If you disrupt this communication, then you can bring down the coordination of bacteria.
However, the undertaking with the pharmaceutical laboratory failed. By the time he moved to Belize, McAfee was firmly seated on hard drugs, which could not end in good.
Complicated story
In 2012, the assassination of John's neighbor, Gregory Vaenta Fall, occurred. The main suspect was McAfee. According to neighbors, he was often high and behaved rudely. He was constantly seen shooting at his site with a gun. John's name often appeared in the press in connection with prostitution and drugs.
When the local police wanted to interrogate him about the murder of a neighbor, McAfee disappeared into an unknown direction. Later, in an interview with Wired magazine, he said that he had escaped, realizing that it was he who was charged with the murder. Although he himself is not to blame for anything. Moreover, according to his version, the killers came precisely to his liking, but mistakenly mixed up at home. A little earlier, he admitted that he contacted the local mafiosi, and one of them wanted to kill him, but he managed to solve the problem. Is John McAfee a criminal or a victim?
Escape to Guatemala
In 2012, John went through another case involving the illegal possession of weapons. Then the police in his house discovered 20 thousand dollars in cash. As well as 7 units of firearms and a pack of cartridges for it.
He was suspected of having links with drug cartels and in the production of psychotropic substances. However, no drugs were found in the laboratory, and a permit was found for the weapon.
After John McAfee was declared the prime suspect in the Fall murder case, he fled to Guatemala. There, local authorities, having announced the illegal stay of the programmer in the country, take him under arrest. After some time, he will be deported to the United States.
Homecoming
Returning to his homeland, John began to receive many letters of complaint from users of Microsoft software. They were unhappy that when installing software in the load, McAfee antivirus was always installed, and its use implies a paid license.
John McAfee, who had not been involved in antivirus software for more than 20 years, decided to respond in his usual manner, starring in a scandalous video clip where he explains what he thinks about this software and what needs to be done with it. The video contained scenes of a sexual nature, drug use, profanity.
As before, he continues to use psychotropic substances. He is arrested for driving while intoxicated. In social networks, he explains this by saying that the Xanax drug, under the influence of which he was, was prescribed by the doctor, and he did not know about its psychotropic effect.
McAfee's dispute with Intel
In 2015, John gets involved in a lawsuit. Along with the acquisition of McAfee Associates, Intel acquired the rights to use the McAfee name in its products and rightly believed that this was an exclusive right. When John decided to rename MGT Capital Investments, where he was CFO, to John McAfee Global Technologies, Intel executives considered this an attempt on their brand. To use his name, McAfee filed a lawsuit.
Subsequently, the proceedings were settled peacefully. John agreed with Intel that he could use his name in company names and commercial products if they weren’t related to computer security.
Participation in politics
In 2016, a photo of John McAfee was printed in all U.S. national newspapers as an image of a man who ran for president.
As one of the popularizers promoting cryptocurrencies, he registered the Cyber Party. John ran for the Liberian Party, but lost to his opponent Gary Johnson, the former Governor of New Mexico.
In response to a comment by one of the readers, McAfee wrote on Twitter: “Of course, I understand that my chances of becoming president of the United States are minimal. However, America is not made by the president, but by the process of his choice. When I run for office, I have many ways to reach out to a lot of people. ”
Most likely, for John, presidential elections were a way to convey to the people the importance of cryptocurrencies in the modern world.
Despite losing, McAfee plans to run for president again in 2020.
John McAfee and cryptocurrency
John is an ardent fan of digital money. In his opinion, they are the only way to end the regular collapse of national currencies, which are specially created by artificial means. He assures that the cost of crypto coins will only grow, and by 2020, half of humanity will actively use them in calculations.
John is popular among mining people. His comments on Twitter about the reliability of a particular cryptocurrency lead to a rise in its value.
In his statements, McAfee relies on his own research on the reliability of the currency. To determine it, he uses the following criteria:
- How qualified is the team promoting the currency.
- Security, as well as how much he himself would like to use this cryptocurrency.
However, he himself does not rule out the fallacy of his statements.
Forecasts by John McAfee are amazing. For example, he predicts that the cost of one bitcoin coin by 2020 will be $ 1 million. A little earlier, he predicted a cost of $ 500 thousand.
Such statements themselves become a factor causing growth.
In 2017, there was a correction in the growth of cryptocurrencies. In this regard, John makes statements that a deep fall will not happen anyway - there have always been, are and will be fluctuations. The main blame for what happened is on the financial institutions of India and China, which decided to limit the activities of cryptocurrency exchanges. The fact is that it is unprofitable for banking structures to deal with currencies that they cannot influence.
Central banks are issuing money. They can issue or hold back coin output by regulating inflation. The situation with cryptocurrency is different: it is mined by enthusiasts using computer equipment. Banks cannot affect this process. From here comes the desire to outlaw digital currency.
