{"id":1964,"date":"2021-06-24T21:04:24","date_gmt":"2021-06-24T21:04:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.politicsphere.com\/?p=1964"},"modified":"2021-06-24T21:37:15","modified_gmt":"2021-06-24T21:37:15","slug":"john-mcafee-anti-virus-creator-found-dead-in-a-prison-cell","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsphere.com\/john-mcafee-anti-virus-creator-found-dead-in-a-prison-cell\/","title":{"rendered":"John McAfee’s Suicide Leaves Many Questions"},"content":{"rendered":"

The world has lost one of the most innovative technology \u2018guru\u2019 who has played a vital role in the tech industry. John McAfee has departed while the world still needed his contributions. With the gift of the MacAfee VirusScan, the computer world was ushered into the era of antivirus programs that were effective in dealing with malware and computer viruses.<\/span><\/p>\n

Born in the United Kingdom on 18 September 1945 in Cinderford, John McAfee was drawn to the world of computer and information technology. This exposed him to computing technologies such as networking, hardware, software, the internet, coding and application development. As a result, he joined the Libertarian Party, a political movement that promotes civil liberties and non-interventionism. As one of the top American computer programmer, McAfee evolved to become a businessman and established companies such as Tribal Voice, Quorum Ex and Future Tense Central, among others\u00a0<\/span>[Source]<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

His most tremendous success was developing the first commercial antivirus, which was named after him as the McAfee antivirus. This antivirus project was initially designed for computers, but more versions for android and iOs gadgets were developed, and McAfee milked all the financial benefits. In 2007, it was reported that he had amassed around $100 million. These millions came after he launched McAfee Associates, an American global computer security software company headquartered in Santa Clara, California. He sold his stake, and the company was later purchased by Intel in February 2011 and incorporated into the Intel Security division.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

As his fame and finances blossomed, McAfee attempted to launch a political career in the Libertarian Party. He aired out his ambitions of becoming a presidential candidate for the United States of America president in 2016 and 2020, but his efforts were all in vain. As an intense political activist, McAfee fought for the decriminalization of cannabis, an end to the war on drugs and free trade. He was also vocal in calling for the increase in cyber awareness and the fight against the threat of cyberwarfare.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Reports from Spain have noted that John McAfee (75) was found dead in his prison cell on 23 June 2021 due to suicide by hanging. He had been arrested in Spain for allegedly evading paying his taxes in the United States of America and concealing his assets in other people\u2019s names. The US Federal had approved an arrest warrant for him, and the police in Spain took him into custody\u00a0<\/span>[Source]<\/span><\/a>. This has been a popular trend for rich and famous people who are always arrested for failing to pay taxes, especially in America. Numerous celebrities are always found wanting but the Internal Revenue Services and the US police forces. Wesley Snipes, Stephen Baldwin, Ja Rule, Nicholas Cage are among the long list of the wealthy people who seem to \u2018forget\u2019 to pay their taxes and were thumbed down by the hand of the US law.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

There has been a lot of controversy surrounding government taxation in the US, with public figures highlighting that the collection of tax is daylight fraud by the US government. McAfee spoke against tax in the US and believed that the innocent were being robbed of their hard-earned dollars by a \u2018lazy\u2019 government. He had been a controversial person clashing with the authorities in previous years. In 2012 he was arrested while on the run as police were investigating the death of his neighbour. And in 2019, he was detained by the Dominican Republic on allegations of bringing weapons into the country. \u00a0In that same year, he sparked a controversial discussion on Twitter after he had Tweeted that taxation was illegal and had not been filing his taxes for over eight years\u00a0[Source]<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Medics failed to resuscitate him, and he was finally declared dead, and the Catalan department concluded that he had taken his own life. His death comes after the Spain high court had approved his extradition to the US. According to his lawyer Javier Villalba, McAfee had died by hanging and being in a prison cell for nine months was a huge upset for him. McAfee had told the Spanish courts that the US authorities would condemn him to jail if he were convicted. Villalba blames the Spanish authorities for causing McAfee\u2019s death because they had kept an innocent man locked up for too long\u00a0<\/span>[Source]<\/span><\/a>. The lawyer also argued that there was no need to keep him in jail as he had many opportunities to appeal to the courts regarding the allegations laid against him.<\/span><\/p>\n

Controversially shortly after John McAfee’s death, his old tweet resurfaced with the ‘WHACKD’ tattoo. The tweet by McAfee from 2019 shows his tattoo on his right bicep reading, “\u2018$WHACKD.\u2019 In a related tweet, he wrote, \u201cGetting subtle messages from U.S. officials saying, in effect: \u201cWe\u2019re coming for you McAfee! We\u2019re going to kill yourself\u201d. I got a tattoo today just in case. If I suicide myself, I didn\u2019t. I was whackd. Check my right arm.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n
\n

Getting subtle messages from U.S. officials saying, in effect: "We're coming for you McAfee! We're going to kill yourself". I got a tattoo today just in case. If I suicide myself, I didn't. I was whackd. Check my right arm.$WHACKD<\/a> available only on https:\/\/t.co\/HdSEYi9krq<\/a>\ud83d\ude42 pic.twitter.com\/rJ0Vi2Hpjj<\/a><\/p>\n

— John McAfee (@officialmcafee) November 30, 2019<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

Condolence messages have been pouring in from different icons in the tech industry and cryptocurrency backers across the globe. A vital piece in the computer world has been removed, and people will continue to enjoy the technological gifts he helped create.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The world has lost one of the most innovative technology \u2018guru\u2019 who has played a vital role in the tech industry. John McAfee has departed while the world still needed his contributions. With the gift of the MacAfee VirusScan, the computer world was ushered into the era of antivirus programs that were effective in dealing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":1966,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[108],"tags":[239,238,240],"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/www.politicsphere.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/John_McAfee_by_Gage_Skidmore_cropped.jpg",1582,2109,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.politicsphere.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/John_McAfee_by_Gage_Skidmore_cropped-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/www.politicsphere.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/John_McAfee_by_Gage_Skidmore_cropped-225x300.jpg",225,300,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/www.politicsphere.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/John_McAfee_by_Gage_Skidmore_cropped-768x1024.jpg",768,1024,true],"large":["https:\/\/www.politicsphere.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/John_McAfee_by_Gage_Skidmore_cropped-768x1024.jpg",768,1024,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/www.politicsphere.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/John_McAfee_by_Gage_Skidmore_cropped-1152x1536.jpg",1152,1536,true],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/www.politicsphere.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/John_McAfee_by_Gage_Skidmore_cropped-1536x2048.jpg",1536,2048,true],"woocommerce_thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.politicsphere.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/John_McAfee_by_Gage_Skidmore_cropped-600x600.jpg",600,600,true],"woocommerce_single":["https:\/\/www.politicsphere.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/John_McAfee_by_Gage_Skidmore_cropped-1000x1333.jpg",1000,1333,true],"woocommerce_gallery_thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.politicsphere.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/John_McAfee_by_Gage_Skidmore_cropped-100x100.jpg",100,100,true],"jnews-360x180":["https:\/\/www.politicsphere.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/John_McAfee_by_Gage_Skidmore_cropped-360x180.jpg",360,180,true],"jnews-750x375":["https:\/\/www.politicsphere.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/John_McAfee_by_Gage_Skidmore_cropped-750x375.jpg",750,375,true],"jnews-1140x570":["https:\/\/www.politicsphere.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/John_McAfee_by_Gage_Skidmore_cropped-1140x570.jpg",1140,570,true],"jnews-120x86":["https:\/\/www.politicsphere.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/John_McAfee_by_Gage_Skidmore_cropped-120x86.jpg",120,86,true],"jnews-350x250":["https:\/\/www.politicsphere.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/John_McAfee_by_Gage_Skidmore_cropped-350x250.jpg",350,250,true],"jnews-750x536":["https:\/\/www.politicsphere.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/John_McAfee_by_Gage_Skidmore_cropped-750x536.jpg",750,536,true],"jnews-1140x815":["https:\/\/www.politicsphere.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/John_McAfee_by_Gage_Skidmore_cropped-1140x815.jpg",1140,815,true],"jnews-360x504":["https:\/\/www.politicsphere.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/John_McAfee_by_Gage_Skidmore_cropped-360x504.jpg",360,504,true],"jnews-75x75":["https:\/\/www.politicsphere.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/John_McAfee_by_Gage_Skidmore_cropped-75x75.jpg",75,75,true],"jnews-350x350":["https:\/\/www.politicsphere.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/John_McAfee_by_Gage_Skidmore_cropped-350x350.jpg",350,350,true],"jnews-featured-750":["https:\/\/www.politicsphere.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/John_McAfee_by_Gage_Skidmore_cropped-750x1000.jpg",750,1000,true],"jnews-featured-1140":["https:\/\/www.politicsphere.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/John_McAfee_by_Gage_Skidmore_cropped-1140x1520.jpg",1140,1520,true]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"Mike Strauss","author_link":"https:\/\/www.politicsphere.com\/author\/m-strausspoliticsphere-com\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"The world has lost one of the most innovative technology \u2018guru\u2019 who has played a vital role in the tech industry. John McAfee has departed while the world still needed his contributions. With the gift of the MacAfee VirusScan, the computer world was ushered into the era of antivirus programs that were effective in dealing…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsphere.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1964"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsphere.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsphere.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsphere.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsphere.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1964"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsphere.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1964\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsphere.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1966"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsphere.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1964"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsphere.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1964"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsphere.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1964"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}