This is not a false alarm. Yes, you read that correctly.
John McAfee, the shy-and-retiring inventor of the McAfee anti-virus product and more recently Belize’s most notorious fugitive, has filed the necessary paperwork with the Federal Election Commission to run for the presidency of the United States.
McAfee, who Intel is keen to point out has not been involved with the McAfee anti-virus products since around the mid-1990s, always was a master at grabbing the media’s attention.
Whether it was predicting that five million PCs would have their hard drives wiped by the Michelangelo virus on March 6th 1992, claiming he has been in a police shootout after being arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence of drugs, or making admittedly quite amusing but NSFW videos about how terrible the McAfee anti-virus product is, he’s always been a successful attention seeker.
Sign up to our newsletterSo, a US presidential run seems quite in character for John McAfee to me.
According to The Hill, the eccentric millionaire claims that “thousands” of members of the public have urged him to run, and he is considering founding his own political party.
Next week, Fridrik Skulason will be on the front cover of Sports Illustrated’s swimwear edition and Dr Alan Solomon will be pronounced Pope.
Found this article interesting? Follow Graham Cluley on Twitter or Mastodon to read more of the exclusive content we post.
The good old Michelangelo scaremongering.. That's a trip down memory lane.
But seeing as how John actually is in all that controversy, including morally, ethically and legally questionable things, it seems that yes, it would be fitting for him to be a politician. If nothing else, it adds more to the circus act that is US politics. Why he would want to subject himself to that is beyond me, but then who am I to judge? It isn't like he is new to this type of drama and attention (and neither are many of the candidates so far).
I'm not sure what I should be feeling but I consider that a positive – it isn't like there hasn't been (for many months) reason for alarm regarding the 2016 US presidential election.
This world is truly barking mad and full of extremely dangerous lunatics.
At least he's an improvement over The Donald. :-)
Second.
It isn't hard to be an improvement over Trump. But it isn't hard to be an improvement over any of the potential American presidents, and every single candidate is scary – some more so than others. While John McAfee is an improvement the thing that bothers me with so many of these candidates is they aren't politicians per se. The fact is politicians are corrupt – we all know this – but anyone who enters politics becomes corrupt too (because those seeking power have the weakest resistance to its dangerous power). But all those who enter politics from another field have other issues while in office; it isn't surprising – they are from another field – but it is still an issue.
All the rumours are untrue.
Think of the possibilities if he won the hot seat…
I wouldn’t be surprised. I mean, the USA once voted an actor for president (Ronald Reagan – famous Hollywood cowboy, remember?).
Well, we elected Obama so why not McAffe. Life is no fun without drama in the Whitehouse.