Following "The Tiger King" and "Observation: Prayer and Obedience in the Cult", Netflix once again tried to "dance with the demon" - "The Father of Anti-virus Software: The Wild World of John McAfee" continues the "crazy" routine: choose crazy, dark, and paranoid topical characters, and highlight the chaos and disorder of their life in the content, even bloody...
Is this the "traffic password" recently grasped by Netflix's documentary production team?
Written by | Xian Yu
Editing | Xu Jing
Proofreading | Zhang Handsome
Produced by | Figure documentary
If you follow the standards of general biographies of documentaries: the narrative of the story from the cradle to the grave, the highlights of the protagonist's life flashbacks, interspersed with relatives and friends or commentators' narratives, the last paragraph of the elevation conclusion... All of the above can't be seen in the documentary "The Father of Anti-Virus Software: The Demon of the Heart, Escape and Crazy Life".
is like a chaotic and wild journey edited by the director after he got drunk, swinging between fascinating and mad, so are you ready?
John David McAfee, who left his name in the history of the Internet, is a strange character, rich, willful and even unscrupulous.
According to the documentary introduction, in 2012, McAfee was asked to cooperate with the Belize police investigation and was questioned about the suspicious death of his neighbor. However, , the technology tycoon chose to escape because he was worried about political persecution and a lot of conspiracy theories. Weirdly, he also invited a video team from VICE to record his escape journey...
Borrowing years of dusty materials, director Charlie Russell produced a crazy work that chaotic and exhausted viewers - how to fall into hell with a capricious, extremely confused person.
Rich "outlaw madman"
Domestic audiences feel unfamiliar with this technology tycoon, and perhaps it is related to the internal and external computer software environment.
Most Chinese people use free domestic antivirus software on computers. But looking at the world, McAfee is one of the best-selling antivirus software in the world. Every day, countless computers will receive regular pop-ups from McAfee. Whether your computer is infected with a virus, or to be more precise, your free service subscription has expired, it is time to pay...
011 Intel company bought the parent company of McAfee antivirus software, it cost about $7.7 billion, but John McAfee sold the shares of the company it developed and started as early as 1999 - that was $100 million 23 years ago.
After John McAfee "Outlaw Madman" version Zhou Hongyi's life experience - drug use, private weapons, and various chaotic private lives - is almost all about "billions".
If calculated from the place of birth, John McAfee is British. In 1945, he was born in a small British town near a US military base. His father Donald was a US soldier and his mother Joan was a local town girl.
WWII ended, the whole family moved to Roanoke, Virginia, USA, where Donald worked as a road surveyor and Joan became a bank teller. Donald, who was drunk, committed suicide when McAfee was 15 years old.
Father affected his life. McAfee later recalled: "Every day I wake up, I think of him. No matter who I date, he is always by my side. If I don't believe in others, he will convince me to believe in others. As a result, my life is a mess.”
In the next few years after his father's death, McAfee began to drink alcohol and drug use but did not change his true nature as a top student. In 1967 he received a bachelor's degree in mathematics from Roanoke College in Virginia. A year later, he entered LSU to pursue his PhD, but was removed from the school for having sex with one of his students during substitute classes.
Mcaffe, who was not a scumbag at this time, married the female student after leaving school.
study route was interrupted, McAfee started his career as an programmer. He has worked in software design and operation for NASA, Univac and Xixelle companies, including writing a piece of code for the Apollo moon landing program, but was often fired by the company for being excited. He once told Wired that when he worked in an information storage system company called Omex, he would smoke cocaine at his desk every day.
McAfee in the programmer's age
In the 1980s, McAfee's life ushered in a major turning point. McAfee, who worked as a programmer in , Lockheed, at that time, received a copy of the world's first personal computer virus, "Brain", and saw huge business opportunities. Afterwards, McAfee spent a year writing the world's first commercial antivirus software and named it McAfee after his last name.
McAfee is a marketing genius. He first put antivirus software online for free, and with millions of downloads, he gained fame at the speed of light, and became the darling of the media. Then, by constantly accepting various interviews and reports, we widely publicize the harm of computer viruses, thereby serving the company's paid business.
This software tycoon once posted a selfie on Twitter, wearing a thong on his face and a mask on his private parts
This style of playing was called nuclear bomb in the business battlefield at that time. Within five years, McAfee's company has occupied nearly 70% of the global desktop antivirus software market. Half of the top 100 companies on the " Fortune " list are using his software.
Just when the company was at its peak, 50-year-old McAfee suddenly announced his retirement because of being tired...
From then on, there was a missing tyrant in the Internet world, and there was an unstoppable nouveau riche in the flower world.
After leaving the company, McAfee began to buy and buy frantically: he owned 12 manors, and the top rich people such as private jets and yachts were not inferior to the standard configuration...
The financial crisis in 2008 gave McAfee a heavy blow. In addition to his rich shopping, a considerable portion of his assets were used to purchase bonds from Lehman Brothers Holdings. When Lehman Brothers declared bankruptcy, all these investments were wasted. " New York Times " revealed that his wealth shrank from $100 million to $4 million. After selling most of the luxury homes, private planes and collectibles to make up for the loss, McAfee chose to settle in Belize, a small country in Central America, while avoiding lawsuits while continuing his relatively wealthy life.
s scenic Belize
In Belize, McAfee bought a villa compound and founded some companies such as cigar manufacturing, coffee distribution companies and water taxi services that can only make some "small money", but he contributed to the poor communities around the villa and invested in electricity and clean water.
But soon, McAfee regained his nature as a drunkard, and in the villa, he was a "harem" composed of seven young women - some of whom were only teenage - was a night of darkness. He also hired a fully armed bodyguard team to protect himself. The story of the documentary "McAfee, the Father of Antivirus Software", begins from this time.
"This is not a film about sex and violence - although these topics are involved in it - this is a story about human nature. And I, McAfee, just happened to experience this story in an extremely strong and full way."
"Is this story not worth recording? ”
“My decision was the same as any ordinary person would make. If you were in my situation, I believe you would do the same.”
In November 2012, McAfee’s neighbor, builder Gregory Forre, was found shot in the head and died at home. Just a few days ago, McAfee accused several of his dogs of poisoning by Gregory and was listed as "stakeholders."
But before the police took the initiative to run away...
"They said I might abscond and were about to send me to prison. Obviously, I ran away first."
Maybe the silent escape was not in line with the aesthetic of this technology tycoon. He felt that there should be a documentary team to record his "feat".
day-large pie fell on VICE reporter Rocco Castoro and photographer Robert King, "We have the opportunity to report the biggest news in the world." "We have no shooting plan. The so-called plan is just to follow the shooting of this wanted man, but we don't know how deep we can go," recalled Robert King.
Their shooting began with a very 007 scene. At Belize Airport, Castoro put on a blue scarf as McAfee asked, and surrounded by taxi drivers who were rushing to pick up passengers, he waited for the one that was unique, "The connector would say, 'Sorry, I'm late.' That car is what we should be in."
However, the spy war atmosphere dissipated on the first side of seeing McAfee, and the story turned to conspiracy theory and even absurdity. In the seven-seat van of
, in addition to the driver, there are also McAfee and his girlfriend Xiao Shan (Shan Herrera). There was no greeting, and the recording began.
After a few irrelevant conversations, McAfee suddenly pulled off the rose petal and stuffed it into his mouth, tucking it while signaling the camera to shoot.
"He was acting, pretending to have stroke , or using gestures to indicate that he was physically disabled." Castoro recalled that he expressed doubts on the spot, "When he encountered trouble, he had the financial resources to escape easily. Is it necessary to do strange things?"
"We present danger, risk, risk, uncertainty. So the passage just now can show my story." McAfee answered very much. At the same time, he mentioned, as if true or false, that he had invaded the mobile phones of Belize government officials, and hinted that the Belize government wanted him to be involved in "many shocking things": "I just received news from a person who had worked as a policeman. The Prime Minister offered a reward of 150,000 US dollars to take my life."
In the hotel, McAfee continued to pretend to be disabled and was in a bad situation
unexpectedly relaxed, took a speedboat out of the high seas, and the escape team successfully landed ashore in Livingston, Guatemala, and fled Belize.
McFei breathed a sigh of relief, and then everyone collectively reduced their wisdom and did a stupid thing that normal people could not understand: taking their passport to the customs to report - a group of illegal entrants took the initiative to "submit themselves"...
The ups and downs of the story are reflected at this moment. At the critical moment when they are about to be deported back to Belize, Xiaoshan suggested that her uncle is the former attorney general and lawyer of Guatemala , "I can call him and ask him for help."
"A girlfriend with almost no legal identity, and a relative of a senior Guatemalan official, what the hell is this?" Many years later, photographer Robert King still couldn't help but complain, "The tropical jungle is such an incredible magical place."
Mcaffe and his girlfriend Shan Herrera
What's more amazing is that before they could contact Xiaoshan's uncle, the fugitives easily left the customs and used a pseudonym to move into the local Four Seasons Hotel. The
roller coaster-style plot continues. The next morning, the crew took a conversation with McAfee, and the atmosphere was good. So after the completion, everyone took a photo, and Castoro posted it on the VICE website's blog.
is another stupid operation!
As an Internet media company, from the film crew to the website manager, no one remembered: the original digital image data taken by the camera includes all information such as time and geolocation, and should be converted before release. The original image of
was published in the Internet world, and the GPS coordinates of McAfee's escape team were leaked. "We believed we had messed up everything and got into trouble," recalled photographer Kim.
Fortunately, the first one came was Xiaoshan’s uncle. After that, McAfee temporarily changed his plan and decided to hold a press conference. At the press conference, he declared to the media that he was seeking asylum in Guatemala due to political persecution. "I will release all my videos, all the videos and documents to expose the current corruption within the Belize government."
December 4, 2012, McAfee answered a reporter's question before the Supreme Court of Guatemala
Guatemala government responded with its actions: The SWAT, the Drug Enforcement Administration and even the Interpol, a large group of people from all walks of life entered the hotel and arrested McAfee.
The atmosphere began to become strange. The crew was placed under house arrest in a hotel room. They called Uncle Xiaoshan for help, "He really only said 'I don't understand, I don't know anything'. He is the highest-level lawyer in this country, incredible."
Just when they were as helpless as birds in a cage, things turned up again: McAfee suffered a heart attack in the center of the detention center and was transferred to the hospital for emergency treatment.
Then, "I don't know if it's because of a miracle or a bribe." Castoro said that someone from the Guatemalan government actually spoke, "I think McAfee should be released." Then McAfee was really taken on the plane and "expelled" back to the United States.
Castoro sighed at the documentary footage, "Oh my God! He (McAfe) has put a lot of effort into it."
Just got off the plane in Miami , McAfee got into a taxi and stayed in a luxury hotel in South Beach, a world-renowned nightlife paradise.
VICE film crew, who is still trapped in Guatemala, also received news that the company had stopped the project - if Netflix had not paid for the restart, this video of the escape journey would have not had the chance to see the light of day again.
html More than 0 years later, reporter Castoro was still a little worried about the project being stopped
"I have nothing. However, I don't regret it."
more than half of the documentary, director Charlie Russell seemed to have calmed down and planned to add some biography about McAfee's life to shift the character documentary to the orthodox route.
A celebrity autobiographical writer Alex Cody Foster took out several recordings. One of them is McAfee’s words about having been abused by his father for a long time. “Until I stopped him” convinced Foster that McAfee killed his father and pretended to have committed suicide.
Another paragraph is McAfee said that he was "framed" by some powerful institutions, "They wanted to arrest me not because of Gregory's death, but because of the information I had."
McAfee said she had eavesdropped on all the computers of US government ministers and had all the information: "I carry a weapon with me, and even when I have sex, I hold a gun in my hand, because of the Sinaloa drug cartel in Mexico, the world's largest drug cartel is going to kill me..."
Corresponding to the conspiracy theory is McAfee's free and easy life.
The first night he was "executed" back to Miami, he broke up with Xiao Shan, who stayed in Guatemala, and fell in love with Janice, a sex worker who has been in the industry for 10 years and has a night fee of $2,000, and the future Mrs. McAfee.
Jenice McAfee
After this technology tycoon switched to venture capital, such as investing in digital currency and manufacturing anti-hacking mobile phones. No investment can bring him back to his peak. The short "glory" of his political career—Mc.A.'s third largest political party, Liberty will nominate for presidential candidates in 2016 and 2019, as he advocated the legalization of cryptocurrencies and marijuana, and McAfee ran for the presidential nomination of the Liberal Will Party, the third largest political party in the United States, soon ended.
But a series of operations maintained McAfee's popularity on social media. He became a small internet celebrity. The single tweet that promoted cryptocurrency was priced at more than $100,000, which successfully attracted the attention of the US Taxation Bureau and began to investigate his tax evasion and hidden assets.
In 2013, McAfee uploaded a spoof video called How to uninstall the antivirus software McAfee
Faced with the "persecution" of government agencies, McAfee, who was in his 70s, embarked on the road of escape, once again. By the way, he called photographer Robert King again to continue shooting a few years ago.
This time, McAfee got the experience and became even more crazy. "He cleaned up everything, transferred all his property, sold his house and car, packed his luggage, and set off."
In Robert King's shot, McAfee started running away teaching, such as using more cash, using wigs to disguise, etc.
In the wig store, McAfee is also a popular boy
The final escape tool is a yacht, which McAfee said was bought from the crew of "Wolf of Wall Street". The ship was modified with eight layers of fiberglass and three layers of Kevra, and bullets could hardly penetrate the hull.
"Crossing through the Florida Strait , we drove to Bahamas , just like Hemingway before."
Robert King found that there was more wine on the ship than water. Everyone grabbed a container and poured wine into it, and there was a crazy drink like today or tomorrow. There are also a large number of drugs, bath salt , which is ten times stronger than methamphetamine, will make people more insane and completely crazy.
McAfee obviously sucked a lot. He was manic and suspicious in the camera, and even frantically searched for "lurkers" that did not exist on the ship, standing on the deck and firing in the air.
"Madman, psychopath, paranoid, millionaire who takes drugs," Robert King recalled. "I realized at that time that maybe John really dared to kill someone..."
wandered in the waters of Caribbean . The 20 weapons carried by McAfee and his bodyguard team brought great obstacles to his escape. In the Bahamas, McAfee paid a huge fine before he could barely pass the test. But when they arrived in Dominican, they were still arrested and put into detention for illegal possession of military assault weapons and ammunition.
Using his British passport, McAfee was expelled to Europe instead of the United States, but he still couldn't escape the law.In October 2020, McAfee was arrested in Spain at the request of the U.S. government. The U.S. Department of Justice accused him of defrauding investors of more than $13 million by falsely promoting cryptocurrencies; he failed to file a tax return for four years and was suspected of tax evasion.
Cause of the new crown epidemic, McAfee appeared in court in Spain in video and was tried
On June 23, 2021, a Spanish court ruled to extradite McAfee to the United States. "The defense claims that the appellant has social, economic or any other relevance, does not give him any immunity to ." The ruling also states that "there is no disclosure of data or indication that Mr. McAfee may be subject to any political persecution."
Later that day, John McAfee was found dead in a prison in Barcelona - the police found suicide.
For many years, McAfee has claimed that he was being hunted down and has stated on Twitter that " If I commit suicide in prison, then I will never commit suicide, but the murdered ". In addition, What happened after Jeffrey Epstein was imprisoned, McAfee's suicide was naturally interpreted by conspiracy theories.
McAfee once said on Twitter that he would never commit suicide
At the end of "The Father of Antivirus Software: Demons, Escape and Crazy Life", the director retained an amazing speech from his ex-girlfriend Xiaoshan. She said that McAfee is still alive, and just two weeks before the recording, he called from Texas , "He said, 'I bought some people, It created the illusion of my death, but I was not dead. '
Director Charlie Russell disagreed with Xiao Shan's statement, but he ended the film with this bloody scene. From the perspective of news, he was a little irresponsible, or lack of insight, indulged in various rumors and speculations about McAfee...
McAfee's widow Janice refuted Xiao Shan's statement on Twitter. "Oh, how I wish it was true. If John was alive, I'm sure he wouldn't be hiding in Texas," she wrote.
Reference:
"John McAfee died in prison: The person and the story of the computer's 'father of antivirus software'"
"'Running With the Devil' can't make sense of John McAfee's wild world"
"How did John McAfee die?》
《John McAfee's Mysterious Death Gets Another Look in Netflix's Running with the Devil》
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