Look Out World – John McAfee Wants To Run For President

Next year’s US presidential election may be about to gain another slightly odd character following an announcement by John McAfee.

The 69-year-old former security expert, who spent most of the last few years on the run from Belizean police, has said that he wants to run for office in 2016 as part of the new ‘Cyber Party’, and is set to make an official announcement later today.

McAfee filed a candidacy statement on Tuesday, the BBC reported, and has also set up a campaign website (see below), which contains details on how to vote and donate to his campaign through PayPal.

Cyber-warfare

“I live in a country that has passed so many laws, that, at an average reading speed, would take me 600 years to read, reading 24 hours a day,” Mr McAfee told the BBC.

“I am protected by a government that invades my privacy so that it can assure me that I am not the enemy it is protecting me from.

“I live in a country that is governed by people largely illiterate in cybersecurity – as proven by the multiple government computer hacks.

“Yet cyber-warfare is now the means of war. My government is dysfunctional. For the 300 million other Americans – you are in the same boat with me.”

Despite going on the run after his neighbour and fellow US expatriate Gregory Faull was shot dead in Belize in the middle of November 2012, McAfee has always claimed he is innocent.

The eponymous antivirus firm which McAfee set up in 1987 but left in 1994, was sold to Intel in 2011 for more than $7.6bn (£4.7bn).

How much do you know about Internet security? Try our quiz!