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John McAfee
A controversial figure , John McAfee is credited with starting an entire technology industry around cybersecurity .
John McAfee is credited with starting the entire cybersecurity industry . In 1987 , he set up McAfee Associates and released VirusScan . Previous antivirus programs had been released , but McAfee ’ s was the first with mass appeal and was soon a day zero ( or at least day one ) installation for Windows users as well as corporate clients .
But McAfee was also a hugely divisive character . He dismissed his own software , claimed he never used it , and rejoiced when Intel bought McAfee and took his name off “ the worst software on the planet .” He was anti-tax , pro-drugs , anti-war and pro-free trade . He was also a tireless crusader for cyber awareness , and set up a political party called the Cyber Party in order to make a bid for the office of president of the US .
McAfee was born in Gloucestershire , UK , but moved to Salem , Virginia , where his American father ( his mother was English ) shot himself when McAfee was 15 . McAfee worked at NASA , Univac , Xerox , Computer Sciences Corporation ,
Amount Intel paid for
McAfee in August 2010
$ 7.7bn
Booz Allen Hamilton and Lockheed . It was while working at the latter he was given a copy of Brain , the first computer virus for PC , and began to engineer a defence .
Controversy dogged McAfee . He was implicated as a ‘ person of interest ’ in the search for a neighbour who had been shot . He married a prostitute . He claimed a cocaine baron was writing his biography . He was arrested for possession of an unlicensed weapon and for manufacturing drugs in Belize ( later released without charge ). There were various other arrests ( mainly weapons related ) but not much would stick until McAfee ’ s anti-tax stance caught up with him .
He fled the US as tax authorities turned up the heat on at least four years of non payment of tax and was arrested ( again ) in Spain in October 2020 at the behest of the US Department of Justice . Charges for fraudulently promoting cryptocurrencies were soon added and he was formally indicted in March 2021 . In June 2021 , the Spanish National Court authorised McAfee ’ s extradition to the US , and McAfee was found dead in his cell just hours later in what is widely believed to be a suicide . Even in death , McAfee courted controversy , having announced that if he was ever found to have killed himself , it would mean he had been murdered . A slew of conspiracy theories mushroomed in the hours after his death was announced . It ’ s just what he would have wanted .
22 August 2021