John McAfee's Latest Project: Shielding Against Surveillance 100
Nerval's Lobster writes "Now that he's finished dodging law enforcement and experimenting with chemicals, software designer John McAfee (founder of his eponymous antivirus company) has been building something that, if it actually works, could appeal to the paranoid: a device that blocks the government's ability to spy on PCs and mobile devices. The device, known as 'Dcentral,' will reportedly cost around $100 and fit into a pants pocket. In a speech at the San Jose McEnery Convention Center over the weekend, McAfee suggested that the hardware would create private device networks impenetrable to outsiders, even those with the most sophisticated technology. The network's range would be roughly three blocks; McAfee believes that he can have a prototype up and running within six months. Whether or not McAfee manages to get that prototype working on schedule, he's already ramping up to the release of something, having set up a 'Future Tense Central' Website with a countdown clock, a sleek logo, and a set of social-media buttons. McAfee is such an outsized figure ('I've always wandered close to the edge,' he once confessed to an audience) that it's sometimes tempting to take his latest claims with a moon-sized grain of salt—this is the same man, after all, who says he avoided a police manhunt in Belize by dressing up as a drunk German tourist. (And he's unafraid to parody his own Wild Man reputation online.) That aside, he's also an executive with a record of starting a financially successful company, which means that—no matter what else he's done in the intervening years—it's likely that he'll attract a little bit of attention, if not some funding, with his latest endeavor."
What? McAfee is now selling snake oil? (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, going from anti-virus to full blown snake oil is not a complete change of direction.
Re:Pervesion of truth (Score:4, Insightful)
Private mesh networks are harder to surveil in their entirety than the current internet. Could the NSA put nodes across the country to get back to intercepting all traffic? Sure. But they'd have to do that - to be even more obvious about ubiquitous surveillance. If that sort of thing has become politically acceptable, then all hope is indeed lost. But there's at least a chance it would be a bridge too far.
OTOH, let's see him actually deliver. Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean you can stop those who are out to get you.
Re:Pervesion of truth (Score:4, Insightful)
I fully agree, their work can be made a lot harder, and given their unwillingness to comply with the Constitution, the courts, and their own charter, it should be.
Tor over a mesh network does exactly that.
My objection is to calling any such solution impenetrable.
Re:Moo (Score:5, Insightful)
Early testers have noted they "feel quite anonymous and undetectable" wearing the tinfoil hat, with no less than three extra layers of tinfoil to keep the NSA out.
Not nearly as amusing as the truth though; He became a successful CEO by starting a business whose product slogan is basically "Hey, that's a nice computer you got there; shame if something were to happen to it." After retiring, he was accused of murder, and then dressed up as a drunk tourist to elude and mock them, while insisting on his innocence. Recently, he has claimed that his brush with the keystone cops has granted him insight into the ubiquous surveillance present in our society, and for a small fee, can make you invisible to it.
There's very little left to this man except an ego, a thick wad of cash, and a seemingly limitless potential to exploit human stupidity as a fuel source for the aforementioned ego.