UPDATED 14:48 EDT / SEPTEMBER 25 2013

NEWS

“Hack? – Impossible” – John McAfee Claims He Is Building An “Unhackable Internet”

Reports say that John McAfee is building a new company that will make the Internet a place that’s impossible to hack.  He is launching a cyber security company that aims to make the internet a safer place.  He has returned to Silicon Valley after, or rather in the midst still of an incredible saga that started many years ago when he launched an anti-virus company named after himself.

“My new technology is going to provide a new type of Internet, a decentralized, floating and moving Internet that is impossible to hack, impossible to penetrate and vastly superior in terms of its facility and neutrality. It solves all of our security concerns,” McAfee said in an interview with the San Jose Mercury News.”

McAfee is 67 now, and despite having split from the company that bears his name almost twenty years ago, he sees an opportunity to invoke a rather timely topic – the security of the entire internet.  Apparently he has not shared any details about this project yet, but McAfee’s story as an extreme salesman predates his first company, so there may be many that are interested in what he can put together.  Whatever it is, cyber security is one of the biggest and hottest sectors in the industry, a fact that surely has not been missed by Mr. McAfee.

He may run into other issues because he is still wanted as a “person of interest” for questioning in relation to a shotgun murder and his subsequent flight while in Belize last year.  There are also multiple stories about drug abuse and other misadventures.  It will be interesting to see what he can get off the ground with that lingering about in the background and the sense of credibility that he would need to restore after all these adventures and twenty years away from the business.  McAfee is living in Portland Oregon now and says he will remain there even when the company launches.

“Security is a very conservative field, one that you don’t talk about what you’re doing or your customers,” said Rob Enderle of the Enderle Group. “For corporate security, I can’t picture a firm doing business with him. And his skill with security is about 25 years out of date. An awful lot has changed since he ran McAfee in the 1990s. But on the consumer level, here his visibility may draw people to the brand and products. He’s a rebel. He’s fighting against The Man. For the folks that are probably most concerned about the government getting involved with their stuff, he could be their spokesperson. His celebrity could work for him.”

Apparently there’s a couple of movies on the way covering his remarkable life.  There’s no word on the direction those are taking or his involvement with the movies.  Details on the company however will reportedly be announced this Saturday at the first C2SV music festival and tech conference in San Jose, CA.

 

 

 


A message from John Furrier, co-founder of SiliconANGLE:

Your vote of support is important to us and it helps us keep the content FREE.

One click below supports our mission to provide free, deep, and relevant content.  

Join our community on YouTube

Join the community that includes more than 15,000 #CubeAlumni experts, including Amazon.com CEO Andy Jassy, Dell Technologies founder and CEO Michael Dell, Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger, and many more luminaries and experts.

“TheCUBE is an important partner to the industry. You guys really are a part of our events and we really appreciate you coming and I know people appreciate the content you create as well” – Andy Jassy

THANK YOU