John McAfee Tells World How He Fooled Cops and Escaped Belize 243
It looks like the long and winding road of the John McAfee saga is going to continue for at least a little longer. McAfee posted a detailed blog post about how he was able to elude Belizean authorities and sneak out of the country. From the article: "'It's visually interesting and it is mostly a happy story — in line with most Christmas stories,' he wrote.
The former software executive describes an operation that was heavy in advance planning and trickery. He says he planted a lookalike ('my double — a man I have known for over 30 years and who years ago legally changed his name to John McAfee') and had him picked up by authorities in the northern Belize-Mexico border, while he and a group of friends and reporters loaded up a truck and headed in the opposite direction, to a southern town called Punta Gorda. With the news that he'd been arrested broadcasting on a local news station, McAfee figured that checkpoint security would relax."
whoa (Score:5, Funny)
He must have been planning his escape for years!
Hey, John (Score:2)
John, it's your story, you tell it like you want...
Re:Hey, John (Score:4, Funny)
I could do the EXACT same thing.
Man,
I'M ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX!!
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M'kay, Jeremiah, it's his story, you tell it like you want. Couldn't hurt.
Re:Hey, John (Score:5, Funny)
All I could think of was "cool story, bro."
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I head do by nominate Keanu Reeves to play John in the made for TV film.
Would /. please spare us ?? (Score:5, Insightful)
Dunno about you, but I'm really sick and tired of yet another episode of the ensuing saga McAfee, the publicity whore !
Please have some heart, Slashdot !!
Re:Would /. please spare us ?? (Score:5, Insightful)
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How is that file system? He has plenty of time for patching bugs now. Provided he write all the patches out on notebook paper... Cause computers are a bit hard to come by in the slammer.
Re:Would /. please spare us ?? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Would /. please spare us ?? (Score:5, Insightful)
I hate his software as much as the next Slashdot geek, and think he's nutty as a fruitcake, but he's hardly a publicity whore. Publicity whores don't vanish into south America for decades on end. Your comment reminds me of all the attacks on Julian Assange - it seems anyone who gets media attention for anything other than being a politician or a celebrity gets accused of publicity whoring.
Re:Would /. please spare us ?? (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, in Julians case, attention whoring seems to be saving his freedom and probably his life.
If it weren't for attention whores, there'd be no entertainment, no stage, no t.v., no radio and no girlies with daddy issues who wanna cuddle up to ol' fly.
Let's not make "attention whore" quite such an anathema.
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McAfee's software turned into something awful, but I do have fond memories of using some of his pre-Window software to edit the executable for a version of larn and change the names of some of the monsters and magic artefacts. The .exe file did not care what a monster was called, as long as the name had the same number of bytes.
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You sure you're not confusing him with Peter Norton? I'd use the Norton Utilities to edit my Larn executable.
[John]
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Yes, I think that you are right. It has been a long time.
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Re:Would /. please spare us ?? (Score:5, Informative)
The parts we hate were written long after he sold out and moved on.
He sold out in 1996, or so as far as I can tell. Did you actually use virus scanners about that time, or are you just revisioning history? Norton was better then. McAfee AV was horrible on servers (where most used scanners then, before they were everywhere). It was a massive resource hog, and would prevent normal operation of the server. One of the reasons people put Linux boxes out in front of MS Exchange is that products like McAfee to scan user emails before delivery would simply kill the server. MS wouldn't support an Exchange server with AV on it because they were so bad. A separate server was a cheaper/easier solution than getting McAfee to work on an Exchange server. Worst software ever.
The only way you get away with saying such things is that likely so many here are new enough to IT that they didn't administer a server while McAfee owned McAfee to be able to form an opinion, or they see an AC with unsubstantiated opinion stated as fact and ignore it, as 99% of all slashdot comments are unsubstantiated opinion stated as fact, so everyone else just ignored you.
Re:Would /. please spare us ?? (Score:5, Informative)
If you don't like the Lord of the McAfee franchise, you can:
Hey, if I don't like the stories that get posted, I remind myself that with Slashdot, I get what I pay for it . . . and it's worth every penny of it . . .
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it would have been really slash-worthy if he had changed his name to little johnny drop-tables.
THAT would be funny.
the rest is just - meh. rich-guy problems.
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And the new slashdot would send an investigative reporter to the Belize holding cell and hear out the double's story, and come out with a book called False Positive The Story of McAfee's Escape
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And the new slashdot would send an investigative reporter to the Belize holding cell and hear out the double's story, and come out with a book called False Positive The Story of McAfee's Escape
Published by Packt, so naturally it would get a great front-page review on Slashdot. Win-win!
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What is a story about a famous software engineer getting accused of murder (sort of), going crazy and going on an international run from the police, doing on Slashdot? Is it either of interest to Nerds, or News?
Or do you just want pictures of Spiderman?
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Sometimes people with OCD have to read ALL of the Slashdot articles before they can move on to looking at their new batch of porn downloads. Nerd Rage is sometimes hard on
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How about just ignoring these articles and moving on with others. The McAfee software does not quarantine Slashdot stories from you.
Yet.
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Well, there was that, and the whole agreeing to show them where he hid the body in exchange for a lighter sentence thing.
I guess you could theorize that someone else killed her and he was forced to watch them hide the body for some reason, but that's as crazy as ... wait. John McAfee? Is that you?
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The thing is, the only reason the evidence was iffy at all was because they didn't have a body, whose importance itself is kind of an artifact of law--although it's very important in some cases, I don't think many people would credibly think that Nina just up and left the country and her kids with nothing more than the clothes on her back.
He had a "how to murder your wife and get away with it" book that he purchased right before she went missing, and absolutely no justification for why he was hosing out his
Re:Would /. please spare us ?? (Score:4, Informative)
Incorrect, the criteria is "beyond a reasonable doubt". Very, very little can be proven beyond a shadow of a doubt. For instance, it's not beyond a shadow of a doubt that he was framed, and then coerced into confessing. It's possible. Heck, it's happened. But I don't think it's reasonable to think that's what happened in this case.
Since he did plead guilty, I imagine that at least he was under the impression that there was sufficient evidence to find him guilty, and the most likely reason for that is that he did in fact commit the crime. Unless you've got an argument that's more convincing than a confession that involves producing the hidden body, I fail to see why we should have let him go.
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As I understand it, the legal standard is "beyond the shadow of a doubt",
It's beyond "reasonable doubt" "shadow of a doubt" has no standing in law.
Re:Would /. please spare us ?? (Score:5, Insightful)
Head in his glove box is only circumstantial evidence. Did you see him put it in there?
Re:Would /. please spare us ?? (Score:4, Informative)
I would think the witnesses seeing him hose out the blood from his car, or the fact that he somehow misplaced the passenger seat, would be pretty good clues.
But when he lead them to the body, that was a dead giveaway.
Re:Would /. please spare us ?? (Score:5, Funny)
I would think the witnesses seeing him hose out the blood from his car
He was a long time sufferer of nose bleeds. Nothing remarkable about this at all.
or the fact that he somehow misplaced the passenger seat, would be pretty good clues.
Typical geek, always taking things apart and not always putting them back together. Maybe a bit absent minded too. Doesn't prove a thing.
But when he lead them to the body, that was a dead giveaway.
Clearly a latent psychic. Doesn't prove a thing.
Re:Would /. please spare us ?? (Score:5, Insightful)
> Can't tell if you're for real Anon
GP's 'Latent Psychic' crack wasn't a dead giveaway? wow, have you considered a job at the FBI or TSA?
> Compelling circumstantial evidence can also win cases
as can lies, misunderstandings, and judges who are out to get "those anarchist bastards" (as one judge was famously quoted as saying after an old and controversial case in my own city). Winning a case is not the same as proving anything, or settling the matter in everyones mind. You may be able to convict with less, but you wont convince everyone that its not a wrongful conviction with less.
On the other hand, leading the police directly to where you buried the body is, generally, a dead giveaway.
For his next trick... (Score:5, Funny)
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I thought of this when I read the summery http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_rvQrLbxO_A [youtube.com]
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He should legally change his name to Carmen Sandiego.
if he could get away with something like this [glamgalz.com]...
Such a wonderful person (Score:5, Interesting)
What really happened in Belize?
Did he kill anyone?
If yes, wouldn't it be righteous to allow the authorities to properly investigate the circumstances of the homicide?
My sense is that Slashdot has been in the tank for McAfee since this started.
I want the truth and the whole story.
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Re:Such a wonderful person (Score:4, Interesting)
Exactly! I've had a hard time finding any real details beyond hyperbole. So many people are screaming guilty and scum, but I can't find many specific details to conclude anything. Can anyone enlighten?
The only details anyone apart from him knows is that his neighbour was shot dead. McAfee seems to believe that his neighbour was killed by a government death squad that was looking for him but got the wrong house so refused to even talk to the police investigating the shooting. The police view hiding from them as suspicious (lol, name a police officer who wouldn't) so are becoming more and more keen to talk to him.
The only way we will ever find out anything close to the truth is if the cops catch the killer without his help and he is proved innocent or if he gets extradited back to Belize and decides to plead guilty. Neither are that likely to my mind.
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So, with a government death squad supposedly after him he got a lookalike who he's known for 30 years and who changed his name to John McAfee to hand hmself in? Did he explain the death squad bit first? Did his chosen victim believe any of it and if so then why participate - just because he wants to give his life to save the real McAffee? The whole thing is ludicrously far fetched. The sort of government who send death squads are not exactly likely to be gently with a false McAfee who deliberately aided and
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So, with a government death squad supposedly after him he got a lookalike who he's known for 30 years and who changed his name to John McAfee to hand hmself in?
...in a different country. (But don't let that detail stop you from being 99% sure.)
Re:Such a wonderful person (Score:4, Interesting)
You are thinking like the middle class. Try it like this: "I'll give you 5 million if you pretend to be me and get the crap beat out of you for a year."
I suspect roughly 1/4 the population would go for such a deal.
Re:Such a wonderful person (Score:5, Insightful)
That's the important question. And I got to say, the more I hear of his antics (dopplegangers changing their name to his?) and novelty drug habits, the less inclined I am to give him the benefit of doubt on this one.
Re:Such a wonderful person (Score:5, Funny)
That's the important question. And I got to say, the more I hear of his antics (dopplegangers changing their name to his?) and novelty drug habits, the less inclined I am to give him the benefit of doubt on this one.
It will soon be revealed that he killed Hans Reiser's wife.
Re:Such a wonderful person (Score:4, Funny)
Or rather, that he was hans Reiser wife who faked her own death in order to prevent reiserfs4 to be integrated upstream, paid as a ex russian secret agent by a unnamed super villain ( take your pick between Google, Microsoft, Apple or anything, we will explain for the next conspiracy that they are all the same company in the end )
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oooo... choose your own adventure... I like that... Could be the next big thing... a community suspense book... each person gets to write a paragraph... Could make a million bucks from this... DIBS!
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That's the important question. And I got to say, the more I hear of his antics (dopplegangers changing their name to his?) and novelty drug habits, the less inclined I am to give him the benefit of doubt on this one.
It will soon be revealed that he killed Hans Reiser's wife.
And the Enquirer will report film footage of the event in eleven years.
Re:Such a wonderful person (Score:4, Insightful)
He is a dodgy man living in a dodgy country in latina america. You need to take any news from either the government or McAfee with a spoonful of salt.
Re:Such a wonderful person (Score:4, Funny)
in latina america
I knew about the pussification of america, but I didn't know that it went that far.
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You're putting words in Vintermann's mouth. He clearly said he's simply less likely to give McAfee the benefit of the doubt. I think that's a pretty objective statement, given the extreme lack of information available about the situation and the relative paranoia McAfee seems to be exuding.
That said, he was in Belize, not McAfee's native land, so it's also reasonable to assume a heightened level of paranoia or fear.
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So then maybe don't move to such a country?
Of course then he would have to deal with lawsuits and personal responsibility.
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I'd like to go on the record that I don't give a flying fuck what he says and I DON'T want to know the facts.
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I'd like to go on the record that I don't give a flying fuck what he says and I DON'T want to know the facts.
I figure it will become a made for TV movie that I will end up watching the next time i'm waiting in the emergency room of a hospital, or in jail, or somewhere where I can NOT change the channel.
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Re:Such a wonderful person (Score:5, Interesting)
But the US almost always gets them in the end. The Republicans complain about the New World Order, but were instrumental in putting it in place. The difference is that rather than submitting to a world government, the US has asserted itself to be the world government. But it's a New World Order none the less.
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The rest is not in dispute.
This whole post is false or inaccurate and/or pure speculation.
Or are you claiming some inside info not available to the rest of us?
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a voice of reason on slashdot? whoah...
Or was that giddyup?
Re:Such a wonderful person (Score:5, Funny)
I want to know who killed Kennedy. And a pony.
I doubt whoever killed Kennedy also killed a pony.
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Prove innocence or go to jail?
No... but prove innocence or be willing to talk to the cops when your neighbor gets murdered seems reasonable.
No smoke without fire?
Turns out that when you see a lot of smoke, its often worth checking to see if there's a fire. There isn't always, but there often is. Its one reason we have fire extinguishers in kitchens and workshops.
"I'm so clever..." (Score:5, Insightful)
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He might as well say, "nanna nanna booboo, come and get me!".
Thanks for the hope your giving us ;-).
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I'd imagine that they generally don't.
The cops sure as hell aren't going to make an international song and dance about all the suspects who've slipped through their grasp, so the only such people you'll hear from are the self-aggrandising gloaters.
You're not likely to hear from anyone who's keeping a low profile, by definition.
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well, better to be a self-aggrandising gloater than an unidentified face-down floater...
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Why is it that people who have evaded authorities find it irresistible to gloat about how "clever" they are to have outwitted cops. I get it, maybe eventually talk about it in an autobiography, but he may technically still be evading said authorities. He might as well say, "nanna nanna booboo, come and get me!".
He's monologuing. That's the downfall of every evil villain.
In this case, he's probably more of a rich, paranoid nutbag than anything. Innocent until proven guilty and all that, but he's not helping his case any and I'm not going to vouch for the authorities in Belize, either.
Delusional (Score:4, Insightful)
This has gone beyond news to just soap opera drama that belongs on a bad trash news site, not ./
I don't expect top notch, confirmed journalism from any internet news site but this one is pure fantasy on the part of McAfee. Stop feeding this delusional, drug addled news whore. He hasn't done anything for technology since selling his business. Stop letting these "news" stories through to the front page.
Thanks
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Yeah, that blog post is probably all fake, yet another bit of social engineering designed to misdirect attention. /.
It's entertaining, I say, and relevant, for
--
You think this is cool, just wait for McAfee's Escape II
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So.... (Score:2)
Was that to evade capture or with his 18 year old girlfriend?
Narcissism, the bane of popular criminals (Score:2)
There's a fine line between panache and smug.
People hate smug, so that's a really really good way to lose one's public support.
GTFO (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:GTFO (Score:4, Interesting)
It was odd to me as well. We do [wikipedia.org] have an extradition treaty with Belize, so they could charge him and request him back. I'd like to see how he plans on dodging the FBI or Marshall's service.
Tale of two Cities (Score:2)
That could have ended badly for the other John McAffe. If the Belize authorities aren't any better than cops in, say rural Texas, they aren't likely to care all that much that they have got the wrong guy.
Dude could easily have found himself sitting in prison the night before his execution, writing "Its a far far better thing I do today than I have ever done before; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known."
he install the fake mcafee on there systems (Score:2)
he install the fake mcafee on there systems as well as the real one and that give him the time to get away while there had to rebuild there systems.
I'll wait for the movie (Score:3)
or book... you do realize that's where all this publicity has been leading right?
Irony (Score:2)
On one hand, how batshit crazy paranoid do you have to be to befriend a lookalike and maintain that relationship for many, many years, even getting him to change his name to yours. On the other hand, that same batshit insanity probably leads to situations where you would need said body double...
Why is this in YRO (Score:2)
Should really be in idle.
Forethought? (Score:2)
You'd think someone that would have such a contingency plan against the "government that is out to get him" would just go somewhere else, pay taxes, and not have to come up with such plans.
julian assange all over again (Score:2)
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You'd lock him up based on some sketchy details you read about online. I think the world would be a much safer place without that kind of gross injustice.
No, i would lock him up for constituting a flight risk while being involved in a murder case. If the things happened in the US as they happened in Belize, don't you think he would be in custody now (or having paid at least so much bail to make his appearance in trial likely). He takes pride in escaping the police of the country he decided to live in.
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In a perfect world, we'd be able to trust the police to do their jobs without prejudice or malice. In some parts of the world, that's already the case.
The GP could be in one of those parts of the world, and may not realize that in other parts of the world bribery is the standard operating procedure, and people are presumed guilty until proven otherwise (usually by means of the appropriate bribe). In this country for example, a man refusing to speak with police, evading them, and using a body double to confu
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Especially since the cost of his actions far outweighs that of a reasonable bribe under those circumstances.
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trust the police to do their jobs without prejudice or malice. In some parts of the world, that's already the case.
What part of the world would that be in, because I haven't heard of anyone perfecting AI and implanting it in robots yet. One of the most important lessons I learned in high school was that everyone has bias, it's part of the human condition. Most law enforcement officers have a bias towards catching the criminal and so they will color their view of the evidence to point towards their most lik
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Why would the world be safer?
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Because having someone out there who thinks that the laws don't apply to him is unsafe by my book ;-).
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Think how much better off if the entire Congress was behind bars, together with the President and all his cabinet, and most of the top corporate officers. Hey, it's a start.
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The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers.
-- Shakespeare, Henry VI part 2, Act 4, Scene 2
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Think how much better off if the entire Congress was behind bars, together with the President and all his cabinet, and most of the top corporate officers. Hey, it's a start.
Okay, what I have learned from the movies and TV is that being in jail doesn't stop someone from getting bad things done.
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I am not to say if he's guilty or not. I am saying that he should face the investigation and the subsequent trial (if it comes to that). If he wishes to escape justice, he has to be arrested (as it is custom everywhere in the world). It is the country he has chosen to live in. So he has to follow the rules there.
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Shakey-cam as Jeremy Renner's beat-up pickup rolls past the mountain road checkpoint where they're arresting his double, played by Matt Damon?
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If I have to read about an attention whore I'd prefer them to be bat shit crazy. It makes the stories more interesting.
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I mean, this publicity event is a great distraction to the fact that McAfee illegally escaped the country following a murder case where he legitimately was a suspect.
Not that I don't think he did it--to be honest, I'd give it about a 60% chance that he did--but he was never a suspect. He was a "person of interest".
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Presumably he was released when it turned out to be the wrong guy. Coulda happened to anybody named John McAfee.