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John McAfee arrested in Guatemala
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- gunther69 14y agoDid he get arrested for really bad software?
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- wilfra 14y agoIt's unfortunate he's batshit crazy right now or he could probably get the US Embassy involved and fight his extradition and asked that he be deported back to the US, instead of Belize.
- DanBC 14y agoHe's evading a US lawsuit. He doesn't want to go back to the US.
- learc83 14y agoI think I'd rather be back in the US facing a civil action, than on trial for murder in Belize.
- DanBC 14y agoWouldn't that be worst of both worlds? Going through civil action and then being extradited to Belize to face criminal trial?
- wilfra 14y agoExcept in very rare circumstances, the United States does not extradite its citizens to face criminal charges in other countries. @learc83: exactly. if he wasn't having a psychotic episode, he'd realize that. unfortunately his mind is probably telling him that somehow going to Belize > going to the US.
- DanBC 14y ago> Except in very rare circumstances, the United States does not extradite its citizens to face criminal charges in other countries. Wait, what, really? They've been pitching a fit about Gary McKinnon, Christopher Tappin, Assange, etc. I guess I should pay more attention to the laws of other nations.
- wilfra 14y agoNone of those guys are American citizens and they are all wanted for breaking US laws - very different than a US citizen being wanted in Belize. The US loves to have foreign nationals who have violated US laws extradited to the United States, as well as having US citizens who have broken US laws extradited to the US - but it rarely honors extradition requests of its own citizens to other countries. So if you are an American wanted abroad, the safest place you can be is in the United States - assuming of course that you are not also wanted in the US.
- illuminate 14y ago"They've been pitching a fit about" The difference is that America answers to no one.
- danso 14y agoNice job VICE magazine
- djt 14y agoI think he went to Guatemala for asylum on purpose
- phaus 14y agoI think he said that he was planning on meeting with Guatemalan officials. Looks like it was a great plan.
- solarexplorer 14y agoExcept it didn't work out: EFE reports that the speaker of the Guatemaltecan government, Francisco Cuevas, announced that McAfee will be returned to Belize in the next hours.
- eduardob 14y agoI doubt that McAfee will be extradited shortly. He hired Telesforo Guerra, a notorious lawyer (or abogangster, as we call them in Guatemala) who has successfully prevented the US Government from extraditing Guatemala's former President, Francisco Portillo, for the past 3 years after being accused of laundering $15MM.
- politician 14y agoSo, crazy like a fox it seems.
- illuminate 14y agoWhite collar crime isn't murder, though.
- solarexplorer 14y agoAt least Alfonso Portillo is a Guatemaltecan national. McAfee is an illegal alien. We'll see what happens...
- smoyer 14y agoWhy does following the McAfee story feel like watching a soap opera?
- sliverstorm 14y agoBecause this is the kind of things soap operas are made from?
- gkoberger 14y agoThis means the VICE metadata of the image the published was correct, and his "I edited the EXIF data" story was a lie: he was in Guatemala (specifically, along the Rio Dulce in Parque Nacional Rio Dulce). Also, just yesterday he posted saying that he would be meeting with Guatemalan officials this morning: http://www.whoismcafee.com/guatemala/ http://www.whoismcafee.com/guatemala/
- citricsquid 14y agoHe admitted it in that post you linked to: Yesterday was chaotic due to the accidental release of my exact co-ordinates by an unseasoned technician at Vice headquarters.
- nickporter 14y agoThat's a shame.. Vice produces some interesting content. Hopefully this won't cause too much damage to their reputation.
- nikatwork 14y agoI don't think they'd care either way. Vice is gonzo journalism (and I love them for it).
- JagMicker 14y ago"The Radioactive Beasts of Chernobyl" - my favorite episode of The Vice Guide to Travel: http://m.vice.com/the-vice-guide-to-travel/the-radioactive-beasts-of-chernobyl http://m.vice.com/the-vice-guide-to-travel/the-radioactive-b... Another great episode is the one where they visit North Korea, and sing karaoke to "Anarchy in the U.K.": http://m.vice.com/the-vice-guide-to-travel/vice-guide-to-north-korea-1-of-3 http://m.vice.com/the-vice-guide-to-travel/vice-guide-to-nor...
- raverbashing 14y agoAnd that is one of the reasons why I don't care about GPS in my cameras Camera phones are a different story, but the GPS in my is so bad it is more likely to not get a location (except outdoors, oops)
- 1qaz2wsx3edc 14y agoGreat job Vice Magazine! Good Journalism. (Leak aside, this is probably for the best though.)
- edj 14y agoAlthough it's more interesting to imagine he was found due to the outing of a VICE photographer's EXIF data[1], it's probably more likely he gave himself up at the advice of his attorney in Guatemala[2]. [1]: http://www.mobileprivacy.org/2012/12/vice-com-publishes-exclusive-with-john-mcafee-reveals-location-in-iphone-metadata-exif/ http://www.mobileprivacy.org/2012/12/vice-com-publishes-excl... [2]: http://www.vice.com/read/john-mcafee-is-in-guatemala-city-and-he-just-hired-the-best-lawyer-in-the-country http://www.vice.com/read/john-mcafee-is-in-guatemala-city-an...
- andrewfelix 14y agoSerious question: Why do so many people empathise with McAfee's plight? From where I stand he looks like wealthy man who lost direction, turned to drugs and likely killed a man.
- _delirium 14y agoTechies read a lot of genre fiction with anti-heroes on the run, and that kind of thing. Maybe even some political sympathy, McAfee as an example of "going Galt".
- alokhar 14y agoWho is Galt?
- tednaleid 14y agohttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Galt http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Galt
- gregholmberg 14y ago"John Galt is a fictional character in Ayn Rand's novel Atlas Shrugged (1957)." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Galt http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Galt http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayn_Rand http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayn_Rand
- alokhar 14y agoWhat I meant was: Who is John Galt?
- kaonashi 14y agoA fictional character.
- thejsjunky 14y ago
- ds 14y agoWhat a sad situation. Its obvious that McAfee is in a state of mania. Its been widely documented that he has extensive abuse issues with bath salt type of drugs which are about as paranoia-inducing as possible. Regardless of his guilt in killing his neighbor, he truly needs professional help. Going long periods as he is can have serious long-term effects. Also, this is not someone to idolize. He fled from the US to avoid a wrongful death lawsuit.
- bitsoda 14y agoFor anyone unfamiliar with bath salts, here is a fairly comprehensive article describing the drug: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/multimedia/bath-salts/ http://www.pbs.org/newshour/multimedia/bath-salts/ Also, here's a quick summary of what the drug does in GIF format: http://i.imgur.com/P4csH.gif http://i.imgur.com/P4csH.gif
- blhack 14y ago"Bath Salts" is not a "thing". "Bath salts" is how "research chemicals" (read: drugs) are imported to the United States and sold under the radar of the FDA and DEA. These things are sold as: lady bug attractant, plant food, or bath salts. None of these are actually the intended use, unless you think that head shops are now having crossover with bath and body works. Here is an excellent [but very depressing] story about how some "lady bug attractant" devastated a town: http://www.vice.com/read/bath-salts-in-the-wound-0000320-v19n7 http://www.vice.com/read/bath-salts-in-the-wound-0000320-v19...
- DanBlake 14y agoI wonder what happens if you actually ended up using bath salts as.... bath salts. Would you experience effects from absorbing them? If so, that would be a pretty lock-solid lawsuit.
- jlgreco 14y agoUnfortunately I suspect suing one of these companies would not be worth the trouble. I can't imagine they keep any amount of assets anywhere that they could be seized.
- DigitalSea 14y agoLooks like it's time to open up another packet of popcorn kernels, this movie is starting to get even more interesting. In all seriousness though, I may have said else-wise earlier but provided John is given a chance to defend himself and isn't killed or framed for the murder before the trial, if he's telling the truth hopefully it all works out in the end.
- illuminate 14y ago"isn't killed or framed for the murder before the trial" He could certainly be guilty and the sole source of all this drama, you know. He's been a very unreliable narrator since the beginning.
- mikeash 14y agoThis seems compatible with his being guilty. If he is guilty (and I make no statement either way, really have no idea) then I'd still hope he's found guilty legitimately, rather than being framed or assassinated.
- illuminate 14y agoAgain you push the idea that he's fully sincere and mentally grounded in any fears of "framing" and "assassination". He is not a well man from his writings/behaviors and will hopefully find the care he needs in prison or elsewhere if not found guilty.
- mikeash 14y agoI really don't think it's related to his mental state. The possibility that he's being unjustly chased by local police is not at all mutually exclusive with the (seemingly pretty likely) possibility that he's mentally unwell.
- illuminate 14y agoAre charges of murder and running a drug lab necessarily "unjust"? You've decided his innocence already, the rest of us require something more than his word.
- sneak 14y agoEXIF metadata: ruining people's lives since 1995
- skadamat 14y ago"They say the trial will last 30 days"
- gprasanth 14y agoMcAffee, trial, 30 days Haha I see what you did there :)
- brandoncor 14y agoJohn was interviewed on the Joe Rogan podcast on Nov. 27 when he was still on the run: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5GmwSgCfn38 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5GmwSgCfn38. It's worth a listen if you want to hear his side of the story (though it's quite cringeworthy). It starts at about 18:40.
- Aco- 14y agoThis is an interesting interview, McAfee doesn't sound insane at all, in fact this entire interview sounds exactly the opposite, he is rather put together and well spoken.
- marcamillion 14y agoWell the good thing is that now McAfee has the entire world watching what happens to him - so it's more likely that he won't be killed. We will see though.
- Uchikoma 14y agoNot sure how his side of story goes, all news seems to be incoherent: He didn't pay 2M$ to that party, so they made the police kill his neighbor in order to take him for questioning and then kill him?
- Uchikoma 14y agoReading about McAfee on wikipedia, I found this one interesting relating to the paranoia point of the story: "In a 2012 article in Mensa Bulletin, the magazine of American Mensa, he stated that being the developer of the first commercial anti-virus program has made him "the most popular hacking target", adding "Hackers see hacking me as a badge of honor". He added that for his own security he has other people buy his computer equipment for him, uses pseudonyms for setting up computers and logging in, and changes his IP address several times a day."
- Samuel_Michon 14y agoSounds like RMS...
- awj 14y agoIn what way? I'm no huge fan of RMS, but McAffe is in a whole different league of "weird relationship with computers and the internet".
- Samuel_Michon 14y agoJust a few examples: “I sometimes use Google's search engine, and I sometimes use DuckDuckGo. When I use a search engine, it is always from a machine that isn't mine and that other people also use. I never identify myself to the site, of course.” http://stallman.org/stallman-computing.html http://stallman.org/stallman-computing.html “I am unwilling to identify myself in order to connect to the Internet. For instance, if a hotel gives a user name and password to each room, I won't use that system, since it would identify me. I would need some other way to connect.” https://secure.mysociety.org/admin/lists/pipermail/developers-public/2011-October/007647.html https://secure.mysociety.org/admin/lists/pipermail/developer... “I refuse to have supermarket frequent buyer cards of my own because they are a form of surveillance. I refuse to have a cell phone because they are tracking and surveillance devices. They all enable the phone system to record where the user goes, and many (perhaps all) can be remotely converted into listening devices. When I need to call someone, I ask someone nearby to let me make a call. I absolutely refuse to take Amtrak trains because they check passengers ID (sometimes, not all the time)” http://stallman.org/rms-lifestyle.html http://stallman.org/rms-lifestyle.html
- philwelch 14y agoHe should have made a beeline for the Ecuadorian embassy and pulled an Assange maneuver.
- olalonde 14y agoAccording to his blog, he might not get deported: > My lawyer just brought a judge to the jail and the judge issued a stay order until a higher judge can review the case. This effectively stops Immigration from returning me to the Belize border. So….. the urgency is eased a bit.
- nnq 14y ago...just out of curiosity, what's the worst thing that could happen to this guy if he just comes back to the US?
- frozenport 14y agoI am impressed that he hasn't died earlier from the drugs - the guy is 67 and looks 50. He must drunk a lot of tea. If they find him guilty, his life is over.
- iKlsR 14y agoI wonder if he will get a 30 day trial..
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- Tipzntrix 14y agoI would be pretty angry at Vice Magazine if I was McAfee right now.
- RoyceFullerton 14y agoVice footage of the detainment: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWqiVhRa0xI http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWqiVhRa0xI