Hyderabad: "Getting subtle messages 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..." tweeted John David McAfee less than two years from now on December 1, 2019. When the anti-virus pioneer was found dead in his jail cell near Barcelona yesterday the international media was awash with his news fueling speculation about the nature of his death. Incidentally, his end came hours after a Spanish court approved his extradition to the United States to face tax charges.
McAfee was out and out a maverick, besides being a highly controversial figure, cryptocurrency promoter and tax evader whose history of legal snares spanned from Tennessee to Central America to the Caribbean was arrested at the Brians 2 in Spain. In addition, he was charged with numerous criminal cases from financial dealings and even murder making him unarguably the most wanted man in the United States.
Born in Cinderford (United Kingdom) in the U.S. Army base to an American abusive alcoholic father, who was stationed there and a British mother, McAfee was raised in Salem, Virginia. He was a precocious kid whose deep interest in complex mathematics landed him in NASA's Institute for Space Studies during the closing days of the Apollo program when he was barely 23.
In the course of his professional career he joined Univac as a software designer, and later Xerox as an operating system architect. It was during his stint at Lockheed in 1980s, McAfee received a copy of the Brain computer virus, the first computer virus for the PC, and began developing a software to combat viruses. His ambitious stint at Lockheed ignited McAfee to do wonders and came to be universally known as the anti-virus pioneer.
If McAfee's anti-virus software was nothing short of revolutionary, his entrepreneurial acumen was equally awe-inspiring. Yet, the initial "impression is hardly one of a geek or guru. McAfee looks a decade younger... tan with frosted hair, rings in his ears and tattoos from back to biceps," wrote The Arizona Republic on August 28, 2007, adding, "In less than a decade, McAfee ascended to yoga teacher, leading workshops on peace, light, truth and oneness. He wrote four books with titles such as Beyond the Siddhis: Supernatural Powers and the Sultras of Pantanjali."
Years later in 2015, McAfee had unsuccessfully tested waters in politics and aspired to become the President of the United States of America. Despite his phenomenal success in software, McAfee indulged in a number of criminal activities that turned him into an international fugitive, and finally ended in tragedy.
