McAfee Security founder wanted for murder in Belize | Hacker News Reader

McAfee Security founder wanted for murder in Belize

arstechnica.com

69 pointsReltair34 comments

Let's wait with the hanging until the verdict is in.

"John McAfee, who founded the antivirus software giant named after him, is wanted for questioning by police in Belize who are investigating the murder of a 52-year-old man, CBS reported today.

According to the report, police are searching for the killer of Gregory Viant Faull, an American expat. Gizmodo reported earlier today that McAfee was wanted for the crime, but CBS, quoting Rafael Martinez, spokesman for the Belize National Security Ministry, said it would be incorrect to call McAfee a suspect at this time. "

From: http://news.cnet.com/8301-1009_3-57548458-83/antivirus-pione...

There is plenty of smoke here, even a smoking gun but it would be premature to conclude McAfee handled the gun and if he did that it was murder.

Highly recommend you click through to the drug forum posts (he's "stuffmonger").

OK, I've read it. Thanks for the recommendation. Yes, it is an extremely interesting thread: :http://www.bluelight.ru/vb/threads/541627-Hello-and-an-MDPV-...

My impression is that McAfee is a brilliant fraud, trying his best to communicate something he feels is of great value but constantly tripped up by some innate compulsion to embellish. On the other hand, he's one of the most articulate and lucid characters in the thread. While there are a few other mentally intact and highly intelligent posters, I picture him as the hapless 35-year-old sixth-grader in Miss Mandible's classroom: http://www.coldbacon.com/writing/barthelme-mandible.html

Is it more of a surprise that he's comes across as genuine, fully coherent, and rational, or that most of those consuming drugs made in their kitchen based on questionable mail-order supplies and loose online descriptions have to be reminded several times that baking powder is not the same as baking soda? My other main impression is that many of the journalists attempting to summarize the thread in various online venues share the reading comprehension level of the latter.

It's a shame he had to go crackpot. The original reason behind his move to Belize -- or at least the publically stated reason -- was to research a new class of antibiotics, known as quorum-sensing inhibitors (QSIs).

Long story short, these drugs would inhibit bacterial growth without creating resistances. If they pan out, they're a revolution in antimicrobial medicine.

That is simply not a true statement.

He met Allison Adonizio (who introduced him to QSI) long after he moved to Belize. They managed to synthesize a compound that was already patented by a big pharm company, but produced no original research.

It is not hard to figure out John moved to Belize because of the lax drug enforcement and age of consent laws.

It's been reported that he moved to Belize in an attempt to shield his assets from lawsuits stemming from a death that occurred at a paragliding company he owned.

Well, I certainly stand corrected.

Like I said, that's the "publically stated" reason. Evidently it's just that -- bullshit smoke he's been blowing to cover up his foul play.

> It is not hard to figure out John moved to Belize because of the lax drug enforcement and age of consent laws.

Lax drug enforcement, sure, but age of consent? It's 16. There are dozens of countries where it's significantly lower -- many 12 or 13. Don't see why that'd be much of a motivator, even if that's your thing; most US states are 16 too, IIRC.

Heck, if he really was a filthy perv he could've gone to Spain, where age of consent is 13.

or he could join the catholic church where they dont worry about that sort of thing

> most US states are 16 too, IIRC.

Right, but it's 18 in California, where most TV shows and movies come from, so the unexamined idea in everyone's head is that it's 18 everywhere in the country.

TV Tropes (you knew this was coming) mentions this as an example of SoCalization. The infiltration of Californian idiom and assumptions into the global mass media is truly insidious. But hey, isn't Silicon Valley in California as well?

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SoCalization

The original link says he moved to Belize because he had a legal judgement against him in the US, and wanted to protect his assets.

Not sure if that's true, but it might not be as altruistic as "antibiotic research".

Let's give credit where credit is due: Gizmodo exclusively broke this story, not just of McAfee's post-software adventures, but of his current status as a murder suspect:

http://gizmodo.com/5959812/john-mcafee-wanted-for-murder

but it is also part of the gawker family, so fuck them.

Uh, so? Judge pieces of work on an individual basis.

I am reading it for the information it conveys not the emotions it evokes.

Bath salts: "Since then, McAfee has reportedly been spending his time researching MDPV, a stimulant that can produce similar effects to methamphetamine. It is illegal in the United States." 0.o

Unfortunately, in itself, that statement means very little to me:

> a stimulant that can produce similar effects to methamphetamine

That can describe many substances, both legal and illegal: street meth, Adderall, Vyvanse, Desoxyn, MDMA - the list goes on. Even caffeine could be said to produce 'similar effects' - both are stimulants and diuretics that have comparable in vivo half-life times (depending on the means of ingestion).

> It is illegal in the United States.

Well, that doesn't mean much. Methamphetamine is illegal, except when it isn't (prescribed). And the US drug scheduling (which determines the degrees of legality) is so nonsensical that it may as well be randomly generated for all it tells us about the relative dangers and harms of a substance.

Methamphetamine was given out in bucket loads to troops in the past.

Hitler also took an injection of Methamphetamine every day until his suicide. But we've strayed off topic.

That is why in the Ars article it was linked to its wikipedia page : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methylenedioxypyrovalerone

There's not much innuendo involved here. The article pretty directly links to MDVP. Go look it up on Erowid; it's not particularly inert stuff.

> The article pretty directly links to MDVP. Go look it up on Erowid

My point is that this is a rather irresponsible journalistic statement. If they want to portray MDVP as a dangerous substance, that's a pretty terrible comparison that fails to get the point across to anybody who knows a thing or two about psychoactive substances.

> anybody who knows a thing or two about psychoactive substances

Which is arguably a single digit percentage of ars readers.

Would you rather assume your readers are knowledgeable and help them rise to the occasion, or assume that they're ignorant and one day be proven correct?

My background in journalism has taught me to favor the former.

I'm confused. Are you trying to say that you don't have a background in journalism? Or you do, but it's just decades old from a time when the goal was to inform and not just get page views? Modern journalistic tack is to write sensationalist scare stories targeted at the least common denominator moron, as they'll be the most outraged and hang on every update.

> Modern journalistic tack is to write sensationalist scare stories targeted at the least common denominator moron, as they'll be the most outraged and hang on every update.

I don't think it's a coincidence that most modern journalism isn't worth reading, IMHO.

> Or you do, but it's just decades old from a time when the goal was to inform and not just get page views?

It's not decades old - I just like to think we did a good job of writing informative pieces instead of sensationalist nonsense.

At least, we made a very, very dedicated effort to follow journalistic ethics - I'll let others be the judge on how well we succeeded. :-)

Time to switch to Kaspersky!

His software murdered my computer too.

My thought exactly, and that was the crime I was hoping they'd nail him for.

Back in the days when McAfee still worked there, it was a genuinely useful program.

The McAfee story is getting more interesting and weird every month it seems. I wonder what will happen next. Will he flee to another country, safe from prosecution, or will he be caught? Etc

When the story ends (likely by suicide or imprisonment unfortunately) somebody should really make a movie about it.

MDPV can seriously fuck you up. It's the most potential stimulant I've ever used. If McAfee was researching it, he was using it. It's one of those drugs I recommend you to be extra careful with.

I'm surprised nobody has pointed this out, but the title really should be changed - he has not been charged, and is merely a 'person of interest', which is very different from saying that he is wanted.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/story/2012/11/12/mcafee-be...

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