Software developer and former CEO John McAfee may be best known for his famous anti-virus software. According to a recent profile in the BBC, however, he’s reaching a new audience – this time, fans of blog, rather than cautious web users.
The multi-millionaire software developer founded McAfee Security in the late 1980s as one of the first computer antivirus firms. As of 2011, the company was owned by computer hardware giant Intel – one of several high-profile software acquisitions.
McAfee, however, has had little involvement with the company for more than fifteen years, departing from the firm in 1994. In the years since his departure, he claims he has been called a ‘paranoid, schizophrenic, wild child of Silicon Valley.’
His life since departing McAfee has been something of a liability for the company. A series of legal issues in Belize turned the founder of the company into a celebrity on the Internet, as did his extensive blogging about his bizarre, wild lifestyle.
After departing Belize following a series of legal issues, McAfee claims to be working on a product that will allow users to evade the surveillance of the NSA and other US government agencies.
The device, called D-Central, will reportedly fit inside a user’s pocket and create a three-mile radius in which their phones, tablets, and other devices can operate in complete secrecy.
McAfee believes the product could be sold for as little as $100, and claims that he will market it from outside the United States if authorities dislike it. His history in computer security makes it possible that, despite the technological odds being far from in his favour, McAfee could make such a device work.
For now, however, the former software developer and legendary antivirus hacker is hard at work with a Canadian film company, making a documentary about his life in the years since departing the software company he founded 25 years ago.
