back to article John McAfee ‘goes underground’ in motorcade to flee SEC

Security personality John McAfee has “gone underground” in a convoy of armored cars escorted by people claimed to be former members of the military, to escape what he says is persecution by America's financial watchdog – the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) McAfee has released a series of videos explaining that he’s …

  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    You mean the McAfee that..

    ..teamed up with a Chinese mobile device company that just had many of their apps silently pulled from the Google Play Store? THAT McAfee?

  2. StargateSg7

    As a person who has an interest in network security systems AND has looked at this case rather diligently, all I can say is that whatever he might have ingested, imbibed or inhaled in his younger years has LIKELY caught with McAfee.

    Either he is a REALLY GOOD ACTOR....OR....he is a just plumb old crazy-arse of an old fogie!

    His videos take the cake for weirdness in my opinion. BUT if you're sooooo filthy rich that you can afford your own SpecOps team to guard you...you can DEFINITELY say to the SEC and the world to go Smeg-Off !!!!!

    ===

    On a second point where McAfee, Symantec, etc. anti-virus/malware scanners EAT you network time, I suggest you do what WE DO!!!!! We build a box that has a boatload of FPGA chips in it AND a huge bucketload of RAM (Four Terabytes) that do NOTHING BUT deep-packet inspection IN PARALLEL !!!

    We take all the bits and bytes defined in various open-source scanning libraries and combine them into a MASSIVE in-memory databased into a HUUUUUUUUUGE hash-table for ultra quick binary-searching! It 1000x faster than ANY scanning product as we have ALL NAS storage send streams of bytes (via Raid-X architectures) during the double-write-to-disk process of a typical mirroring RAID scenario to the FPGA box BEFORe write-to-disks!

    Any NEW viruses or malware that comes out has it digital signature uploaded to the FPGA scanning box and any found data is quarantined AT the mirror-write stage so it NEVER gets onto either copy of a hard disk if the streams of data is compromised.It's just a BIOS and NAS low-level driver hook and at 40 gigabit network speeds it no issue for us! We use Deep Packet Scanning techniques and Man-in-Middle technology to PREVENT encryption of payloads. Super encrypted payloads are simply BANNED from the network using our technique! EVERYTHING MUST BE SCANNED or it does NOT get in!

    Since it's NOT on the server, our DNS and other services are NEVER overloaded and the SEPARATE 40 gigabits NAS server-to-FPGA-scanner-box fibre connection NEVER interferes with other network traffic!

    It cost us less than $50,000 to do mostly in RAM memory cost which is a LOT CHEAPER than buying MULTIPLE $5000 to $20,000 US Enterprise-level firewall/antivirus appliances AND it is sooo much more secure since WE do all the software ourselves AND the BIOS requires a DIP switch in order to upgrade the custom scanning software and an actual electrical switch-on button to ADD new virus definitions!

    So NO security issues with remote admin since it is NOT ALLOWED!!!!

    1. jake Silver badge

      No no no no ...

      ... it's Spot that is NOT ALLOWED, as any fule no.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: No no no no ...

        No! No! It's "as any fule kno" - as any fule kno.

      2. GBE

        Bravo on the Kibology reference

        it's Spot that is NOT ALLOWED

        It's been _ages_ since I've seen a kibology reference.

        Good one!

    2. TonyJ

      Are StargatSG7 and BoB one and the same?? Same odd way of capitalising random words etc.

      1. Tom 38

        Are StargatSG7 and BoB one and the same??

        No, sometimes what Bob says makes sense..

        1. Prst. V.Jeltz Silver badge
          Holmes

          bit of recon ....

          Posts by StargateSg7

          87 posts • joined 12 Jul 2017

          mostly wid mad CAPZ

        2. TonyJ

          No, sometimes little parts of Bob's weird rants make sense..

          FTFY

          1. jake Silver badge
            Pint

            Most of what Zippy says makes sense.

            Unless he's talking politics, of course. Even then, he's such a caricature that I'm still not all that certain he's not trolling.

            He does have serious issues with flat user interface design, to the point of being well over the top about it. But he's absolutely right, it really is fucking ugly and of negative benefit.

            The random CAPS thing, though, that makes no sense at all.

            Other than that, he's just another jaded old techie. Pints all 'round?

      2. Alistair
        Windows

        I doubt they're one and the same, I've rather assumed that SG7 is Bob's offspring. Or perhaps, Bob is SG7's Mentat.

        1. StargateSg7

          NO! NO! and DOUBLE NO !!!!

          I am NOT Bob! Nor am I his progeny or his great nephew, thrice-removed.

          I --AM-- CANADIAN !!!!!

          Form the land with "The Beer Out Here" (aka Kokanee!). I live in a place where it's nine months of winter and three months of bad skating! A place where I can dip a hundred servers into the frigid waters of northern British Columbia (i.e. a western province WITHIN Canada!) just for the cooling effects AND then pontificate how many CPU registers I will fill with maximal values. I can knock out a video codec in a day! I eat curried fried ICE CREAM for breakfast AND then recode an entire convolution-based neural net in less time than it takes for my ignoble sharts to make their way down to the local lavatory AFTER gulping down a Starbucks Quincenta with its 52 ounces of 8-shots of espresso and 7.68% of butterfat milk!

          Again...I AM NOT BOB !!!!! But I wouldn't mind oggling AND canoodling all the third-eye-blind-melon hotties he gets to entertain in full public view from his octo-chromatically lit 18th floor abode in the Gherkin Tower!

          ---

          AND for those of who who want something SECURE in terms of scanning systems, may I suggest TWO 40 gigabit network cards installed as a MULTI-HOMED configuration in a one-terabytes of system RAM whitebox 2-cpu server running a SECURED AND TRUSTED micro-Linux OS that does NOTHING but act as a firewall and deep packet scans ALL incoming/outgoing packets from your router AND ALL RAID-X mirror writes/reads to and from your directly connected NAS!

          That is LESS THAN $5000 US or 3600 Euros of costs! Your virus and malware signatures can be obtained from MULTIPLE open source repositories....THERE IS NO EXCUSE for having the BEST custom virus/malware scanning/firewall software available! DO NOT TRUST the BIG BOYS of security --- YOU are the master of your own fates!

          BUILD THAT MULTI-HOMED FIREWALL/MALWARE/VIRUS SCANNING BOX NOW !!!

          1. ds6 Silver badge

            I think this poor man has consumed one too many cups of Starbucks.

      3. Charlie van Becelaere
        WTF?

        Re: Are StargatSG7 and BoB one and the same??

        I think not. I am more reminded of the Mall Ninja (just google that - pretty bizarre stuff there too).

        1. Chris G

          Re: Are StargatSG7 and BoB one and the same??

          Mall Ninja? Ah you mean the illustrious Gecko 45.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    [insert country name] has “a pyramidal power system that is corrupt at the core.”

    could apply to almost any state since the dawn of history, and certainly now.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Devil

      "could apply to almost any state since the dawn of history"

      Especially because back then they actually built pyramids and stash gold inside of them!

      1. Teiwaz

        Re: "could apply to almost any state since the dawn of history"

        Especially because back then they actually built pyramids and stash gold inside of them!

        Sort of debatable that, perhaps all the gold was looted from the Pyramids long, long ago, but they also lack the murals undisturbed royal tombs had.

        What I choked on, was that 'CEOs' were too scared to divulge the alleged 'big' 'illuminati' (or whatever) 'pyramid' conspiracy - I'd have thought CEOs were quite 'pyramid power' oriented (just not the 'crystals and mystic 'pyramid power').

        If the U.S. is 'suddenly' run by a pyramid sect - surely that the ediface in question is on the money should be long running hint.

        I think he's been driven mad by staring at notes too much - he should give it all to charity (or me) and become a bum (and / or) an alcoholic (or start / fund an internet conspiracy site).

  4. jake Silver badge

    McAfee has form being weird.

    For values of weird that include "apparently batshit crazy".

  5. amanfromMars 1 Silver badge

    Difficult to believe such things are true and not fake propaganda to dumbed down masses

    Are you being told here that the system that is/the systems that are, are just and not corrupted to server perverse inequities revealing gross inequalities in maintenance and retention of a troubled status quo oligarchy/autocracy which is for the few in a rigged and now rapidly collapsing market space?

    That's a hard sell nowadays, Simon, which more and more evidence and intelligence leaks does not support.

  6. rmason

    Cocaine makes some people absolutely mental.

    See above, who knew, eh?

    The man is a grade-A fruit loop. A drug fueled one.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Cocaine makes some people absolutely mental.

      The man is a grade-A fruit loop. A drug fueled one.

      Correct. If he were British, and stretching the truth considerably, he might get away with "eccentric".

      I think the correct clinical term [I Am Not A Psychiatrist, merely a counselor] is "badsh*t crazy"

      1. DropBear
        Angel

        Re: Cocaine makes some people absolutely mental.

        I've heard the general rule of thumb to apply in such circumstances is "I'm fashionably eccentric, you're weird and he's batshit crazy"...

  7. Multivac

    Doesn't John McAfee look a lot like Johnny Hallyday? Has anyone seen John since Johnny died?

  8. anothercynic Silver badge

    Batshit crazy...

    ... Too many mind-altering substances whilst hiding out in the Latin American jungle? The man is seriously deranged...

    1. Frumious Bandersnatch

      Re: Batshit crazy...

      ... Too many mind-altering substances whilst hiding out in the Latin American jungle? The man is seriously deranged...

      ... And the SEC is far behind / Down in the Swamp / With the Gators and Flamingos / A long way from Lichtenstein / I'm a Junk-bond King playing Seminole Bingo

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mbNhWbeP-k0

  9. tony2heads

    Batshit crazy - perhaps

    but he definitely has his own small army, so I would not push the point too hard.

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Gringo

    US is not Belize.

    There is a documentary about John McAfee and his time spent in Belize (watched it on Netflix).

  11. anthonyhegedus Silver badge

    The man has toys in the attic. For a start he's ranting about bitcoins, a technology that's so fiendishly complex to use that it's only of use to people who have a strong belief system built around blockchains. The words that his brain emits aren't worth reading or listening to. Just another drug-crazed moron who thinks that <insert technology here> is going to change the world.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      I'll challenge you that bitcoins are not that complex, and anyone can use them either as a consumer or researcher, of enough time is devoted to learning the software and algorithms/ecosystems respectively.

      Now whether they have any actual value is up to the market—but everything's a fiat currency nowadays so a better question would be if it matters. Me, I'm partial to Monero.

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "a not-very-well-looking old man"

    Assuming this is the image you had in mind, I'd point out that- to be fair- oversharpening tends to exaggerate any lines or details on *anyone's* skin in an incredibly unflattering way.

    Particularly when it's obviously been applied that much *before* upscaling to what was clearly a much lower resolution image.

    That's also a nasty case of JPEG compression artifact rash on his face (I hear it's going around in Belize). Contrast doesn't help either.

    That said, I don't know why he'd choose such a ropey-looking image; maybe he was on something.

  13. Sheepykins

    Genius and madness are indeed two sides of the same coin.

    Not that im calling his antivirus genius, but he a smart guy, who is quite clearly off his fucking trolley

  14. Mike Moyle

    Feeling left out...?

    I mean, Assange was in the news yesterday; maybe McAfee was just feeling a bit ignored.

    1. GIRZiM

      Re: Feeling left out...?

      I was gonna ask whether anybody else had noticed that you never see hear about McAfee and Kim Dotcom at the same time but, now you come to mention him, you never see Assange together with either of the others ... erm ... either - the clot plickens (or something).

  15. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

    Sounds like presidential material

    The only problem is that you would never be able to uninstall him

  16. Zwuramunga

    And he shot a guy

    Gregory Viant Faull.

  17. Florida1920
    Pirate

    The gift that keeps on giving

    John, we'll miss you when you're gone.

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