John McAfee arrested at Belize

McAfee is in news – for wrong reasons.  Generally, you utilize McAfee for keeping your Computer safe, safe from viruses and other malaware.  McAfee, Inc. is a computer security company headquartered in Santa Clara, California, USA. It markets software and services to home users, businesses and the public sector. The company was founded in 1989 as McAfee Associates, named for its founder John McAfee. McAfee was incorporated in the state of Delaware in 1992.

Antivirus or anti-virus software is software used to prevent, detect and remove malware, such as: computer viruses, adware, backdoors, malicious BHOs, dialers, fraud tools, hijackers, key loggers, malicious LSPs, rootkits, spyware, trojan horses and worms. Computer security, including protection from social engineering techniques, is commonly offered in products and services of antivirus software companies. A variety of strategies are typically employed. Signature-based detection involves searching for known patterns of data within executable code. However, it is possible for a computer to be infected with new malware for which no signature is yet known. To counter such so-called zero-day threats, heuristics can be used. No matter how useful antivirus software can be, it can sometimes have drawbacks. Antivirus software can impair a computer's performance.

This post is not about how McAfee protects but more about the arrest of  McAfee,  computer programmer and founder of the antivirus software bearing his name, in Belize, when a task force known at the Gang Suppression Unit broke down his door, after being tipped off about a weapons cache. McAfee contends that the raid surrounded a bigger political cause, due to the fact that he didn’t contribute any money to a known UDP Orange Walk politician.

Photo courtesy : New York Times

During the raid, McAfee and 11 of his employees were arrested and detained, his research lab was ransacked, his dog was killed, and his passport was taken. He was charged with illegal weapons possession and unlicensed drug manufacturing. The drug manufacturing charge surrounds McAfee’s new biotech company called QuorumEx which is producing commercial, all-natural antibiotics based on anti-quorum sensing technology. Basically, drugs made from exotic plants.

To read something about QuorumEX - Allison Adonizio and John McAfee think they've discovered the next great antibiotic in the jungles of Belize. It's all natural. It's unpatentable. It's untested.  It grows wild along the shores of the New River, among the Mayan ruins of Lamanai, next to the lilies that are home to little yellow birds that skip across the pads. Inside Belizean plants used for generations by native healers, a suite of chemicals produce a natural "anti-quorum sensing" effect that interrupts bacteria's ability to communicate. And bacteria that can't communicate don't go pathogenically virulent.  At least that's the hope. If they're right, they've discovered the herbal equivalent of Neosporin.

About the arrest, McAfee made a statement stating that he was awakened by the sound of a bullhorn, thirty GSU in full uniform stormed the property.  They began, with sledge hammers, to break the doors of the buildings—none of them were locked, but they just went and broke them in any case. They confiscated my passport, all of the weapons we used for security on the compound, handcuffed me and everyone and for fourteen hours outside in the sun, I sat handcuffed without food or water. ………... They charged me for having a firearm without a license; took me to Belize City. …………..

Belize (earlier British Honduras)  is a country located on the north eastern coast of Central America and it is the only country in the area where English is the official language, although Kriol and Spanish are more commonly spoken. Belize is bordered to the north by Mexico, south and west by Guatemala, and to the east by the Caribbean Sea.  So at Belize, the anti-virus software appears not to be working for its founder…….

With regards – S. Sampathkumar.