In episode 5 of Truth In Media with Ben Swann, John McAfee and I discuss the mass surveillance state, government’s control over citizens through central banking and how decentralized technology can fight this, and his presidential run. We also talk about disinformation spreading across mainstream media, big tech platforms, and more.
Tag Archives: john mcafee
John McAfee Selling Cryptocurrency Promo Tweets for $105K
John McAfee has become a celebrity face in the cryptocurrency world. In a recent tweet, McAfee has publicly taken this role further by announcing the formation of the McAfee Crypto Team.
We finally wrote down how our promotional tweets work. It's self aggrandizing and ego stroking for us, however, if you're planning an ICO, trying to boost a coin or want to shine a light on your latest project, you should overlook our swollen egos and see:https://t.co/O6TBWrxDzm
— John McAfee (@officialmcafee) March 30, 2018
McAfee is a well-known businessman and computer programmer who formed McAfee Associates 25 years ago. The company had great success with antivirus software, which led to Intel acquiring the company in 2010 for $7.68 billion.
McAfee’s Twitter feed is loaded with cryptocurrency discussion and promotional material. Multiple posts on many days feature tweets about crypto exchanges, altcoins, and Bitcoin. He is also known for mentioning Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs) and coins that he is supporting, which has led to allegations of his involvement in ‘pump and dump’ campaigns.
The https://t.co/y2hmHFKYkv ICO tokens are now on sale. My advice is to check it out.
— John McAfee (@officialmcafee) March 4, 2018
SAFEX spiked 92% hours after McAfee tweeted about them in December of 2017. Another promoted coin was BURST in late December, which saw a 350% gain.
Disclaimer: SAFEX is the majority of my holdings. I ran numbers for weeks before I chose it – knowing it had technical problems and that it would be delisted from most exchanges. But I have, to my knowledge, never lost money on an investment. But take this with a grain if salt.
— John McAfee (@officialmcafee) December 15, 2017
Coin of the day: BURST — First truly Green coin and most overlooked coin. Uses 400 times less power than Bitcoin. Super secure and private. Includes smart contracts, encrypted messaging, decentralized wallet, libertine blockchain. Most undervalued coin. https://t.co/vOJOtNYLXp
— John McAfee (@officialmcafee) December 22, 2017
Prior to announcing his new promotional marketing plan, McAfee has been silent about whether he is paid for his tweets, as a single positive Tweet to his 811,000 followers about a coin has at times resulted in dollars flowing into the specific cryptocurrency.
He has also been known for making some obscure cryptocurrency predictions, such as his Tweet about “eating his own d*ck” if proven wrong about his Bitcoin prediction of $1 million by 2020.
When I predicted Bitcoin at $500,000 by the end of 2020, it used a model that predicted $5,000 at the end of 2017. BTC has accelerated much faster than my model assumptions. I now predict Bircoin at $1 million by the end of 2020. I will still eat my dick if wrong. pic.twitter.com/WVx3E71nyD
— John McAfee (@officialmcafee) November 29, 2017
The McAfee Crypto Team website is confident and energetic about the influence McAfee has with his tweets, stating:
Within the cryptocurrency industry, nothing can match the power of a McAfee tweet. Frequently, a single tweet has resulted in more than a million dollars of investment into an ICO, and multiple currencies have increased more than 100% in price from a single tweet.
The team uses McAfee’s social media reach as its justification for the $105,000 price tag, calling it cheap when compared to other alternatives:
“Given Mr. McAfee’s price of $105,000 per tweet, the cost per investor reached is the least costly of any marketing avenue in the Crypto world. Considering only his own followers, the cost per investor reached is $0.13. Considering his reach beyond his own followers, the cost per investor reached is frequently less than a penny. This is orders of magnitude less than any other approach.”
The website used a poll conducted by McAfee in his tweets, where 50,000 followers contributed. The findings claim that:
“737,000 of his followers buy or sell cryptocurrencies at least once a month. 154,000 buy or sell cryptocurrencies daily.
380,000 have more than 25% of their total assets stored in cryptocurrencies. 259,000 have more than 50% of their total assets in cryptocurrencies.
518,000 have more than $3,000 already invested in cryptocurrencies. 224,000 have over $20,000 invested in cryptocurrencies. This las group alone represents, at a minimum, $4.48 billion in crypto investments.”
McAfee has received some negative feedback from his pay-to-play promotion. McAfee tweeted shortly after the website release about his process for choosing ICOs.
They say I sold out 'cause I use my tweets to promote, but the last 200 ICOs that lined up, we rejected 195 and chose 5. I only promote what I believe. In addition, all ICOs that we promote, since Finacoin, are audited by Crypto Connection. And I limit promos to 2 a day max. So..
— John McAfee (@officialmcafee) April 1, 2018
McAfee spoke with The Independent and explained that “I’m the only person in the crypto field that has openly divulged the outrageous amounts of money charged by crypto promoters.”
“It’s embarrassingly huge, but it’s true,” McAfee said. “I have been getting these fees for over six months. I decided to go public with it because I am an advisor to many of these companies and I know that I’m in the cross-hairs of the SEC [US Securities and Exchange Commission], so it is in my interests to prove transparency.”
McAfee also recently announced that he launched a Telegram group focused on chatting “about all things crypto,” and made sure to note that moderators in the group would ban its members upon any “pumping and shilling.”
Poll: Who Do You Support For The Libertarian Nomination?
McAfee: I Will Decrypt Information on the San Bernardino Phone For Free
Using an obscure law, written in 1789 — the All Writs Act — the US government has ordered Apple to place a back door into its iOS software so the FBI can decrypt information on an iPhone used by one of the San Bernardino shooters.
It has finally come to this. After years of arguments by virtually every industry specialist that back doors will be a bigger boon to hackers and to our nation’s enemies than publishing our nuclear codes and giving the keys to all of our military weapons to the Russians and the Chinese, our government has chosen, once again, not to listen to the minds that have created the glue that holds this world together.
This is a black day and the beginning of the end of the US as a world power. The government has ordered a disarmament of our already ancient cybersecurity and cyberdefense systems, and it is asking us to take a walk into that near horizon where cyberwar is unquestionably waiting, with nothing more than harsh words as a weapon and the hope that our enemies will take pity at our unarmed condition and treat us fairly.
Any student of world history will tell you that this is a dream. Would Hitler have stopped invading Poland if the Polish people had sweetly asked him not to do so? Those who think yes should stand strongly by Hillary Clinton’s side, whose cybersecurity platform includes negotiating with the Chinese so they will no longer launch cyberattacks against us.
The FBI, in a laughable and bizarre twist of logic, said the back door would be used only once and only in the San Bernardino case.
Tim Cook, CEO of Apple, replied:
The government suggests this tool could only be used once, on one phone. But that’s simply not true. Once created, the technique could be used over and over again, on any number of devices. In the physical world, it would be the equivalent of a master key, capable of opening hundreds of millions of locks — from restaurants and banks to stores and homes. No reasonable person would find that acceptable.
The government is asking Apple to hack our own users and undermine decades of security advancements that protect our customers — including tens of millions of American citizens — from sophisticated hackers and cybercriminals. The same engineers who built strong encryption into the iPhone to protect our users would, ironically, be ordered to weaken those protections and make our users less safe.
No matter how you slice this pie, if the government succeeds in getting this back door, it will eventually get a back door into all encryption, and our world, as we know it, is over. In spite of the FBI’s claim that it would protect the back door, we all know that’s impossible. There are bad apples everywhere, and there only needs to be in the US government. Then a few million dollars, some beautiful women (or men), and a yacht trip to the Caribbean might be all it takes for our enemies to have full access to our secrets.
Cook said:
The FBI may use different words to describe this tool, but make no mistake: Building a version of iOS that bypasses security in this way would undeniably create a backdoor. And while the government may argue that its use would be limited to this case, there is no way to guarantee such control.
The fundamental question is this: Why can’t the FBI crack the encryption on its own? It has the full resources of the best the US government can provide.
With all due respect to Tim Cook and Apple, I work with a team of the best hackers on the planet. These hackers attend Defcon in Las Vegas, and they are legends in their local hacking groups, such as HackMiami. They are all prodigies, with talents that defy normal human comprehension. About 75% are social engineers. The remainder are hardcore coders. I would eat my shoe on the Neil Cavuto show if we could not break the encryption on the San Bernardino phone. This is a pure and simple fact.
And why do the best hackers on the planet not work for the FBI? Because the FBI will not hire anyone with a 24-inch purple mohawk, 10-gauge ear piercings, and a tattooed face who demands to smoke weed while working and won’t work for less than a half-million dollars a year. But you bet your ass that the Chinese and Russians are hiring similar people with similar demands and have been for many years. It’s why we are decades behind in the cyber race.
Cyberscience is not just something you can learn. It is an innate talent. The Juilliard school of music cannot create a Mozart. A Mozart or a Bach, much like our modern hacking community, is genetically created. A room full of Stanford computer science graduates cannot compete with a true hacker without even a high-school education.
So here is my offer to the FBI. I will, free of charge, decrypt the information on the San Bernardino phone, with my team. We will primarily use social engineering, and it will take us three weeks. If you accept my offer, then you will not need to ask Apple to place a back door in its product, which will be the beginning of the end of America.
If you doubt my credentials, Google “cybersecurity legend” and see whose name is the only name that appears in the first 10 results out of more than a quarter of a million.
John McAfee is currently running for president as a Libertarian.
Gary Johnson: Fox Business to Host Libertarian Party Presidential Debate
John Stossel is reportedly planning to host a nationally-televised Libertarian Party presidential primary debate on his show on Fox Business Network, possibly in March.
An announcement posted Tuesday on 2016 Libertarian presidential candidate and former Republican New Mexico governor Gary Johnson’s official Tumblr page read:
“The Gary Johnson 2016 campaign has confirmed with Fox Business’s Stossel that Gov. Johnson will be delighted to participate in a televised debate among Libertarian Party presidential candidates, hopefully in March. We will of course leave the formal announcement of the debate details and date to the Stossel show, but want to express our gratitude to Mr. Stossel for working to find a date for this important event that will not disrupt any planned Libertarian Party activities and that is actually doable for all the candidates who are involved.“
[RELATED: DONEGAN: If GOP Debate Stage Can Fit 11, Let Third Parties In General Election Debates]
Political commentator Austin Petersen, also a candidate for the Libertarian Party’s 2016 presidential nomination, said in a Tuesday statement cited by his online magazine The Libertarian Republic, “After quite a back and forth last week over whether there would be a nationally televised Libertarian Party presidential debate between myself and the other frontrunners, we just got word a few hours ago that there’s a chance we might be able to make this debate happen! That’s Tremendous news! We can’t wait for the opportunity to meet Johnson and [John] McAfee head to head… We’re planning on confirming, however we are going to be spending our time doing every bit of due diligence today just to make sure that the dates won’t interfere with any state or local LP activities we may already be committed to.”
It is not yet known which candidates Stossel is planning to invite to the debate. Petersen’s statement seems to imply that the debate could at a minimum include Petersen, former Gov. Johnson, and software developer and fellow 2016 Libertarian presidential candidate John McAfee.
[RELATED: Johnson: Fiscally Conservative, Socially Tolerant Voters Alienated by Iowa Results]
The Libertarian Party’s official website lists twelve 2016 presidential candidates. In addition to Johnson, Petersen, and McAfee, the party’s candidates currently include Marc Allen Feldman, Cecil Ince, Steve Kerbel, Darryl Perry, Derrick Michael Reid, Jack Robinson Jr., Rhett Smith, Shawna Joy Sterling, and Joy Waymire.
The Libertarian Party’s delegates will select its nominee at its national convention, which is set to take place on May 26-30 in Orlando, Florida.
For more 2016 election coverage, click here.
John McAfee Will Seek Libertarian Party Nomination for President
In a recent interview with USA Today, presidential candidate John McAfee announced that he would seek the Libertarian Party nomination.
In early September, the antivirus software pioneer and adventurer announced his presidential candidacy and the creation of a new political party. McAfee said the “Cyber Party” would bring “Privacy, Freedom and Prosperity” to America.
McAfee now says he will put “boots on the ground” by working with the Libertarian Party.
“They have [10] candidates [for president], none of whom have personality,” he told USA Today in a phone interview. McAfee also said on Tuesday he was contacted by a representative from the Libertarian Party and discussed representing the party. The Libertarian Party’s national convention is in May in Orlando, Florida.
Doug Craig, a national board member of the Libertarian Party, told USA Today that McAfee speaks on a number of issues important to the Libertarian Party. “He fits right in with our political philosophy,” Craig said.
Just days before his latest announcement, John McAfee released an open letter to the other presidential candidates.
“We are very rapidly moving toward an unprecedented and existential election for our nation’s next president. America has never faced challenges such as it does now,” McAfee wrote. “The threat level in our world is at a peak; trust in government is at an all-time low. The People are dissatisfied, and we are worried. And as during all such times in human history, we are looking to our leaders for answers.”
McAfee also criticized politicians for fighting to gain or maintain power rather than serving the will of the people.
“How can any of us be expected to focus solely on the needs of the American People in the true spirit of service if we are distracted by the problem of retaining power? That is why I pledge to the American People that, if elected, I will not seek a second term.”
McAfee goes on to say that he will be a “a servant leader” and a “president who will set to work immediately, unencumbered by considerations of winning re-election.”
McAfee, perhaps best known for creating the McAfee antivirus software, is clearly not worried about what the media or political pundits say about his radical ideas. The seventy-year old adventurer is no stranger to controversy.
He was once connected to a murder in Belize which led him to flee into the jungles of Central America, though he no longer stands accused of anything. He is also known for creating apps and promoting the benefits of yoga.
Truth in Media’s Derrick Broze recently spoke with John McAfee about the core issues of his campaign, his thoughts on the other candidates, the incident in Belize, and much more. Please watch the interview below to learn more about why John McAfee is running for president.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MxzLzGfBMac