John McAfee Explains How He Milked Information From Belize's Elite 275
paysonwelch points out John McAfee's latest blog post, which "details the complex spy network that he used to tap information from the highest echelons of the Belizean government. He might consider a new career as a movie producer — this blog post is enthralling. Here is an excerpt: 'I purchased 75 cheap laptop computers and, with trusted help, intalled invisible keystroke logging software on all of them — the kind that calls home (to me) and disgorges the text files. I began giving these away as presents to select people — government employees, police officers, Cabinet Minister's assistants, girlfriends of powerful men, boyfriends of powerful women.'"
Two words: (Score:5, Insightful)
Nut Job
Slashbloat (Score:5, Insightful)
Trusting anti-virus producers (Score:4, Insightful)
No doubt J McAfee will explain his actions as totally justified and honourable.
Please can we stop it with the John McAfee stories (Score:2, Insightful)
This first one was interesting but seriously; does Slashdot need to 're-blog' everything he says and does?
Sounds rather self-incriminating to me... (Score:2, Insightful)
Or not?
I mean spyware on other people's computers sounds pretty criminal to me.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Two words: (Score:5, Insightful)
This is one of the places where the story rings false. Given any 30 people involved in full-time spying on dozens of other people, it is _inevitable_ that at least one of them would notify the police of this operation. Not only because the activity is illegal, but because very few people can keep quiet about what their wage paying job is for an extended period, and they would inevitably inform lovers, family, or friends. That then multiplies the number of people who might inform on the operation in a plea bargain.
For anyone who's been involved in handling security of any kind, such as a shared administrative password or simply keeping a corporate merger private before the public announcement, it's simply not feasible: it _will_ leak out with many participants.
Re:Two words: (Score:1, Insightful)
Why is nobody stating the obvious? (Score:5, Insightful)
This is clearly bullshit.
At every turn, he attaches quantities to resources:
75 cheap laptops
23 women
6 men
8 of the women lived with him
2 people in the Nicaraguan Hezbollah camp
3 people in Mexico dealing with the Zetas
The only "evidence" supporting his story are his "so easy to fake my kids could it" screenshots and audio files.
I think the original assessment stands: This is a guy who has snorted waaaay too much MPDV, is seeing shadow men in bushes, and killed his neighbor in retaliation for his neighbor killing his dog.
He escaped the country via a combination of his charisma, money, and the ineptitude of the Belize law enforcement.
This is all just a retroactive attempt at explaining why the Belize government would want to frame him. Look, it's simple...why would Belize kill his neighbor to frame McAfee, when they could simply just kill McAfee instead?
Paranoid bullshit, and so obviously so.
Re:McAfee is not a drug addict (Score:0, Insightful)
It was not meant as a "racial stereotype", it was a comment on the particular accent that people from Ireland tend to have (not all of them but very many) which quite frankly has a tendency to sound garbled if said person from Ireland has had enough to drink that his or her speech has become slurred.
The fact that you had to turn that into "ZOMG RACIST!!1" says a lot about you. As for why I picked that example? I have several Irish friends (real Irish, not Boston Irish) who are great examples of this and it's a running joke between them that all it takes is a couple of beers and they are completely unable to communicate with anyone who isn't Irish.
Ya pretty much (Score:4, Insightful)
I can believe in corrupt police framing people, heck we've seen them do it across the globe. I can believe in corrupt police murdering people, again, we've seen it. But why would they murder someone, to frame someone else? That seems like a "supervillian" move, meaning needlessly complex to achieve the actual goal. Just murder the person you want killed and be done with it.
There is just no credibility to this guy.
Also, as a practical matter, if what he says about all this information grabbing is true, he's probably guilty of a bunch of computer crimes in Belize too. He certainly would be in the US. You can't just go and keylog people because you want to.
you only hear about blabbers (Score:4, Insightful)
This is one of the places where the story rings false. Given any 30 people involved in full-time spying on dozens of other people, it is _inevitable_ that at least one of them would notify the police of this operation. Not only because the activity is illegal
You only hear about the cases where people blab...
Also: people blab when it's in their perceived interests. If you live in a country where leadership is bumping off political protesters, there is much less self interest in admitting that you've been helping some rich American engage in espionage. The problem with being brutal and corrupt is that a)it makes people hate you b)it is excellent incentive to not blab about things you're doing against the government.
There also can be plenty of blabbing, just not to anyone who is in power or those associated with them. Information doesn't flow freely - it tends to be like the ocean, with thermoclines representing class/power levels, political affiliation, religion, language, etc. Damn near everyone in a city who works as an office cleaner could know that Joe Big Bank Executive is banging his secretary after-hours, for example.
An even better example would probably be DC. I bet there's all sorts of bullshit that everyone in political/diplomatic circles in DC knows about, but your average person off the street doesn't.
Re:Time for a CIA Drone attack. (Score:4, Insightful)
I would like to extend the mandate for drone killings to people who decide that people should be killed because they're irritating.