
The official Blog of John McAfee - retube
http://www.whoismcafee.com/
======
tptacek
... _I darkened and browned my front teeth. I stuffed a shaved down tampon
deep into my right nostril and died the tip dark brown – giving my nose an
awkward, lopsided, disgusting appearance. I put on a pair of ragged brown
pants with holes patched and darned. I wore an old, ragged long sleeve shirt.
I donned an old Guatemalan style sarape and toted a bag containing a variety
of Guatemalan woven goods. I adjusted my posture so that I appeared a good six
inches shorter than my actual height and slowly walked up and down the beach
with a pronounced limp, pushing an old single speed bicycle and peddling my
wares to tourists and reporters using a broken English with a heavy Spanish
accent. On my second day,_ while peddling small wooden carvings, _I nearly
sold a dolphin carving to an Associated Press reporter standing at the edge of
my dock_ ...

This HAS TO BE A JOKE. This is an elaborate prank.

~~~
freejoe76
Here's ABC News' article, where they talked to him on the phone, and then...
confirmed ///via email/// it was his blog: John McAfee Starts Blog While in
Hiding: [http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2012/11/john-mcafee-
st...](http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2012/11/john-mcafee-starts-blog-
while-in-hiding/)

~~~
tptacek
Literally every post in this blog is dosed with high-test crazy. From the
beginning:

* _Jeff however, I truly believe, thinks that I sent the photos to his wife. If I had done so, then I would deserve whatever wrath he chose to mete out. But seriously, it’s not my style. And if his mistaken suspicion is not the reason for his bulldog approach to sniffing out my life then I can’t even guess at what twisted motives move this man._

* Wired asked him to pose shirtless with a shotgun. This apart from all the other shirtless photos of him, and him with young coeds; did Wired stage those? Did Wired also stage McAfee playing Russian Roulette with a loaded trick revolver in front of Josh Davis?

* _I laid down the pistol that I keep for protection and, contrary to Josh Davis’ assertion that I said “Motherfuckers”, said nothing and went back inside. I woke Amy, the 17 year old with whom I was living, and calmly told her to get dressed – that the GSU was invading the property._

* The entire "Samantha" post, which reads just like the "secret diary of John McAfee" from Gizmodo, which in turn consists of profiles of the various young Belizeans McAfee has slept with, followed by a few sentences about the paramilitary groups seeking to kill him. (My favorite part of all these bits of writing, including the "Samantha" piece, are the photos, which make it seem like the most important thing McAfee has to convince us of is that these young women _are real_ \--- like that makes him seem saner)

* _First there was an attempt to charge me with running an antibiotics laboratory without a license. In Belize a special government permit is required to research antibiotics – a law which is common in Third World countries. To date, no such permits have ever been issued. I suspect the large drug conglomerates have much to do with these widespread laws, or perhaps it’s a viewpoint motivated by my latent paranoia. In any case, I didn’t have such a permit. Neither was I researching or producing antibiotics. Antibiotics are taken systemically. I was working on a topical antibacterial spray. It could in no way be classified as an antibiotic._ (Here it helps to note that McAfee's original research scientist partner in the antibiotic effort had to flee Belize in fear of McAfee)

* The "Punishment of the Innocent" post where careful mention is made of which people do not drink or do drugs.

* The entire "Watchfulness" post, which posits a shoe-polish-painted John McAfee watching the Belizean paramilitary GSU police digging up the corpses of his dogs, removing their heads, and leaving the bodies. _The dogs had been dead too long for an effective autopsy, considering it would be performed in a Third World country with limited access to laboratory resources. What was this all about?_ Well, John, isn't it clear? ZOMBIE DOGS.

~~~
astangl
I think it's plausible that he's not crazy and everything on that blog is
true. The whole situation is crazy enough that people probably approach it
with preconceptions and interpret everything they read in that light.

There does appear to be rampant corruption in the government there. The press
does seem interested in hyping the story, especially by portraying McAfee as a
wacko. When I read the Jeff Wise story "Secrets, Schemes, and Lots of Guns:
Inside John McAfee’s Heart of Darkness" recently, I was struck at how
sensationalized it was, especially the part where he strains hard to make 8
shotguns, 2 pistols, and some ammo into "a small armory's worth of firearms",
and "Vexingly for the police, all of this was actually legal." McAfee writing
that Jeff Wise has some ax to grind, therefore, rings true to me.

I think the Russian Roulette trick involved palming the bullet, and was to
make the point that things are not always as they first appear. Of course for
anyone who's made up their mind that he's crazy, it's just simply more fodder
to reinforce their beliefs.

The "Watchfulness" post does seem over the top, yet even that could be
plausible. It's a shame -- the guy has been tried in the press already, so
people assume he's crazy and a murderer.

------
DanielBMarkham
McAfee is going to end up getting shot, and the rest of us are going to be
arguing for 20 years over whether he was sane or whether he actually just
became more and more unstable and ended up bringing this on himself.

I complain about too much drama on HN, but this McAfee story is way over the
top.

------
evoxed
I never would've guessed that the software industry would produce such
engrossing real-time dramas. Take Kim Dotcom, John McAfee, throw in Elon Musk
for good measure (maybe Branson too) and you're well into comic book
territory.

~~~
evan_
Don't forget Hans Reiser! <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Reiser>

~~~
mandlar
That's one killer file system.

------
powertower
Doesn't really sound like the meth-head that everyone is trying to make him
out to be.

------
kylelibra
This is probably the most comprehensive article about the background to this
situation and reasoning as to why McAfee seems to be losing his mind:
[http://gizmodo.com/5960138/the-crazy-secret-journal-of-
john-...](http://gizmodo.com/5960138/the-crazy-secret-journal-of-john-mcafee-
volume-1)

~~~
yllus
I came away from reading that link and the whoismcafee.com blog thinking that
the man is an eccentric but certainly not insane. It is well within my
imagination to believe that he may be being persecuted by senior government
officials in Belize for not making "donations" or providing other favours when
asked of them.

I think that North Americans sometimes don't realize that one of the reasons
that the rest of the world is susceptible to urban legends and conspiracy
theories is because in those countries, similar stories have been known to
hold true. Nothing like a moon landing of course, but presidents and prime
ministers have in fact been involved in murders, drug charges and fraud. In
that context you're more amenable to think, "Yeah, this could have happened."

~~~
tptacek
So you think the Belizean police are digging up the heads --- just the heads
--- of McAfee's dogs while he watches them disguised with shoe polish on his
face?

~~~
powertower
No, they dug up the entire bodies, but only kept the heads, which is normal
concidering it's a standard way to test for poisons in dead animals (they test
the brain matter, not the muscle tissue).

~~~
tptacek
Here it's worth noting that McAfee contests this explanation. There is some
other, more sinister reason they've taken the heads of his dogs. I think we
all know what it is.

~~~
yllus
To bring his dogs back to life for a few minutes each in order to see what
they saw in their lifetimes? Then they'll have all of his secrets!

~~~
tptacek
What dog would have an easier time tracking and killing John McAfee than a dog
bearing the reanimated head of one of McAfee's _own dogs_?

~~~
bitwize
Sparky! You're back!

------
drivingmenuts
Why wouldn't he either bail over the border to Mexico, bail to the American
embassy, or bail to some other embassy?

Even if he gets arrested in an American embassy, that's got to be preferable
to the inevitable "slipped and fell on a bullet" that the policia are liable
to issue.

He's living in a country where the sane, rational (relatively speaking) rules
of urban America definitely do not apply, fighting a battle he absolutely
cannot win.

------
woodchuck64
Hope I'm that crazy by 67.

------
jpxxx
It's Timecube with nicer layout and a tragic, cautionary tale: mind your
sanity. Anyone can lose it.

~~~
rwallace
Which part comes across to you like the ravings of a madman? If it is such -
and to be sure, I can't claim to know it isn't - then in my opinion he's doing
a good job of appearing sane.

Whether or not it is a cautionary tale about minding your sanity, I think it's
also a cautionary tale about not believing everything you read in the press.
Until fifteen minutes ago I held the belief that McAfee had committed the
crime of which he is accused; thinking about now I realize I held that belief
based on essentially no actual evidence. I'm not saying I now believe his side
of the story instead. I have no real evidence for that either (and I don't
have time to follow up all the links he presented right now). My current
conclusion is that at this time I don't know enough of the facts to judge
either way.

~~~
malandrew
I think part of it has to do with the conclusion many of us jump to when
someone refuses to submit themselves to a trial in a court of law. In the US
we like to believe our system is just, or at least mostly just, and therefore
anyone who is accused of a crime and skips out must be admitting guilt through
their actions. People then tend to project this bias to people who skip court
in societies with less just courts like Belize.

To be honest, even in this country any unattractive minority that is accused
of a crime may want to consider running from the law and skipping the country
because for them our courts are less than just and more likely to convict them
of that crime and give them a sentence worse than the average.

~~~
chimeracoder
> therefore anyone who is accused of a crime

He was _not_ accused of a crime! The police wanted to question him as a
"person of interest" - big difference!

Almost every news story I saw report on this when it broke last week reported
it incorrectly in the headlines as him being "wanted" - it's a shame that
journalism can get away with being so sloppy sometimes.

~~~
at-fates-hands
> He was not accused of a crime! The police wanted to question him as a
> "person of interest" - big difference!

Agreed. However, running from the law and how he's been acting is not in
accordance with someone who's innocent - no?

~~~
darkarmani
> However, running from the law and how he's been acting is not in accordance
> with someone who's innocent - no?

What law? You mean the corrupt "legal" system there? Wouldn't most innocent
people who are afraid of corrupt police act in the same way? (i guess that
implies his innocence then!)

------
larrys
We have, in fact, no way to know if this was actually done by John McAfee. The
domain was registered on 11/16/2012 and contains anonomized whois info (not
that if it gave an address that would be any different).

It's more like "claiming to be the official blog of John McAfee".

~~~
malandrew
What makes it more suspect is the blog post explaining many of the techniques
he's using to disguise himself. Why would you share that information when you
know people are looking for you?

~~~
citricsquid
I just read the entire thing and this is what stuck out most to me. The last
line of the post you're talking about:

    
    
        P.S. No-one at the house, including the staff, know that     
        I am nearby. If the police are reading this, do not 
        randomly round up everyone for harboring a fugitive. Please.
    

This does not read like a serious comment, maybe he turns to humour in times
of desperation but this just seems... either it's fabricated or he's taunting
the authorities.

Also he mentions in one post he's short on time and internet access but then
in the second latest post it states:

    
    
       If I am captured, this blog will continue. I have pre-
       written enough material to keep this blog alive for at 
       least a year.
    

What's the material about? The attempted capture? The murder? His dealings
with the government? Surely he hasn't been expecting this for a long and is
only now publishing? If that's the case I might be as crazy as to suggest
maybe the murder is his attempt at bringing attention to the corruption. If
the corruption is proven true and then the murder may be swept aside as part
of it, even if he did it to get the attention he thinks the issue needs.

~~~
jlgreco
What about that last part doesn't seem serious to you? To me it reads like he
is trying to prevent other people from getting wrapped up in the mess. Seems
reasonable and decent enough to me.

~~~
citricsquid
Assuming you mean my comment about the last line of the disguise post: He
outlines how he's "tricked" the authorities by constantly being there dressed
up in elaborate disguises and then says "oh btw, _pretty please_ don't think
you can find me by rounding up everyone there"? I don't see how that is
anything other than taunting the police, if he didn't want people to be
rounded up he wouldn't make them a target by saying he's pretending to be one
of them!

~~~
jlgreco
Hmm, yes I see what you mean. I suppose maybe I am giving him too much credit
by doubting his sanity/reasoning skills.

------
DanoMano
I am really interested in all of this, John McAfee gave me my first ultra-
light ride at his "Sky Gypsy Ranch" near Rodeo, NM. a few years back. (no I
dont know him) he had just opened the "Sky Gypsy Cafe", a good friend of mine
lived in Portal,Az. I did get to tell him, how I hated that his anti-virus
software, acted like a virus itself on my computer. My limited profile
abilities, (seemed like a normal Joe, except very wealthy and Yoga master BTW)
that he was some kind of genius. However, reading the papers about all of
this, I am very glad I am ME. Thank you God!

------
phaus
Is it just me, or are all ex patriots living in Belize completely insane?

Each one of them left a comment talking about how wonderful it is to live in
Belize, with just the minor downside of a secret police force / gang of thugs
running around murdering people, throwing people in prison, and demanding
exorbitant bribes.

Judging by the comments that they themselves left on his blog, it appears that
saying Belize is a wonderful place to live is akin to saying that living in
Nazi Germany was paradise on earth, except for having to live with the Nazis.

~~~
sk5t
My impression from speaking to an American friend working in China is that a
very significant portion of the ex-pat populations from the USA and Canada are
folks who couldn't hack it in their native lands... personality disorders and
an unreasonable inability to deal with authority seem to prevail, but as
foreigners they get just enough leeway to skate by.

------
16s
He wrote that his girlfriend, Sam, was 17 in April and later wrote she is 20
years old now. Did anyone else catch that?

~~~
Aco-
read it again:

"I woke _Amy_ , the 17 year old with whom I was living, and calmly told her to
get dressed – that the GSU was invading the property. _Amy_ is a tough young
woman. She said nothing, got up, got dressed and sat calmly on the edge of the
bed."

Amy != Sam

~~~
16s
Thank you for pointing that out. It seems he has multiple young women around
him. I thought there was only one.

~~~
citricsquid
If you read a later posts he talks about doing _something_ with 6 other
people. It would seem sex plays a significant role in his life, I guess that
and drugs fit together well.

------
stevewillows
With money and such great disguises, you think he'd be able to get out of the
country.

------
dakrisht
How can you NOT upvote this. This is incredible. Lol

------
Ramonaxvh
If he were in the states I'd say he's just trying to build up a case for an
insanity plea, but I'm pretty sure he knows how well that will go over in
Belize.

Hoax or batshit crazy, or a little of both.

