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McAfee Security founder wanted for murder in Belize

arstechnica.com

21–30 of 37 posts

Re: McAfee Security founder wanted for murder in Belize

#21
Let's wait with the hanging until the verdict is in.

"John McAfee, who founded the antivirus software giant named after him, is wanted for questioning by police in Belize who are investigating the murder of a 52-year-old man, CBS reported today.

According to the report, police are searching for the killer of Gregory Viant Faull, an American expat. Gizmodo reported earlier today that McAfee was wanted for the crime, but CBS, quoting Rafael Martinez, spokesman for the Belize National Security Ministry, said it would be incorrect to call McAfee a suspect at this time. "

From: http://news.cnet.com/8301-1009_3-57548458-83/antivirus-pione...

There is plenty of smoke here, even a smoking gun but it would be premature to conclude McAfee handled the gun and if he did that it was murder.

Re: McAfee Security founder wanted for murder in Belize

#23
post #19
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is simply not a true statement. He met Allison Adonizio (who introduced him to QSI) long after he moved to Belize. They managed to synthesize a compound that was already patented by a big pharm company, but produced no original research. It is not hard to figure out John moved to Belize because of the lax drug enforcement and age of consent laws.

> It is not hard to figure out John moved to Belize because of the lax drug enforcement and age of consent laws. Lax drug enforcement, sure, but age of consent? It's 16. There are dozens of countries where it's significantly lower -- many 12 or 13. Don't see why that'd be much of a motivator, even if that's your thing; most US states are 16 too, IIRC.

Heck, if he really was a filthy perv he could've gone to Spain, where age of consent is 13.

Re: McAfee Security founder wanted for murder in Belize

#24
The McAfee story is getting more interesting and weird every month it seems. I wonder what will happen next. Will he flee to another country, safe from prosecution, or will he be caught? Etc

When the story ends (likely by suicide or imprisonment unfortunately) somebody should really make a movie about it.

Re: McAfee Security founder wanted for murder in Belize

#25
post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The article pretty directly links to MDVP. Go look it up on Erowid My point is that this is a rather irresponsible journalistic statement. If they want to portray MDVP as a dangerous substance, that's a pretty terrible comparison that fails to get the point across to anybody who knows a thing or two about psychoactive substances.

> anybody who knows a thing or two about psychoactive substances Which is arguably a single digit percentage of ars readers.

Would you rather assume your readers are knowledgeable and help them rise to the occasion, or assume that they're ignorant and one day be proven correct?

My background in journalism has taught me to favor the former.

Re: McAfee Security founder wanted for murder in Belize

#26
I'm surprised nobody has pointed this out, but the title really should be changed - he has not been charged, and is merely a 'person of interest', which is very different from saying that he is wanted.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/story/2012/11/12/mcafee-be...

Re: McAfee Security founder wanted for murder in Belize

#27
post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> anybody who knows a thing or two about psychoactive substances Which is arguably a single digit percentage of ars readers.

Would you rather assume your readers are knowledgeable and help them rise to the occasion, or assume that they're ignorant and one day be proven correct? My background in journalism has taught me to favor the former.

I'm confused. Are you trying to say that you don't have a background in journalism? Or you do, but it's just decades old from a time when the goal was to inform and not just get page views? Modern journalistic tack is to write sensationalist scare stories targeted at the least common denominator moron, as they'll be the most outraged and hang on every update.

Re: McAfee Security founder wanted for murder in Belize

#28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you rather assume your readers are knowledgeable and help them rise to the occasion, or assume that they're ignorant and one day be proven correct? My background in journalism has taught me to favor the former.

I'm confused. Are you trying to say that you don't have a background in journalism? Or you do, but it's just decades old from a time when the goal was to inform and not just get page views? Modern journalistic tack is to write sensationalist scare stories targeted at the least common denominator moron, as they'll be the most outraged and hang on every update.

> Modern journalistic tack is to write sensationalist scare stories targeted at the least common denominator moron, as they'll be the most outraged and hang on every update.

I don't think it's a coincidence that most modern journalism isn't worth reading, IMHO.

> Or you do, but it's just decades old from a time when the goal was to inform and not just get page views?

It's not decades old - I just like to think we did a good job of writing informative pieces instead of sensationalist nonsense.

At least, we made a very, very dedicated effort to follow journalistic ethics - I'll let others be the judge on how well we succeeded. :-)

Re: McAfee Security founder wanted for murder in Belize

#29
post #19
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is simply not a true statement. He met Allison Adonizio (who introduced him to QSI) long after he moved to Belize. They managed to synthesize a compound that was already patented by a big pharm company, but produced no original research. It is not hard to figure out John moved to Belize because of the lax drug enforcement and age of consent laws.

> It is not hard to figure out John moved to Belize because of the lax drug enforcement and age of consent laws. Lax drug enforcement, sure, but age of consent? It's 16. There are dozens of countries where it's significantly lower -- many 12 or 13. Don't see why that'd be much of a motivator, even if that's your thing; most US states are 16 too, IIRC.

> most US states are 16 too, IIRC.

Right, but it's 18 in California, where most TV shows and movies come from, so the unexamined idea in everyone's head is that it's 18 everywhere in the country.

TV Tropes (you knew this was coming) mentions this as an example of SoCalization. The infiltration of Californian idiom and assumptions into the global mass media is truly insidious. But hey, isn't Silicon Valley in California as well?

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SoCalization

Re: McAfee Security founder wanted for murder in Belize

#30
post #14
post #2

Bath salts: "Since then, McAfee has reportedly been spending his time researching MDPV, a stimulant that can produce similar effects to methamphetamine. It is illegal in the United States." 0.o

Time to switch to Kaspersky!

NOD32 > Kaspersky (IMHO)
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