Vice.com Reveals John McAfee's Location In iPhone Metadata | Hacker News Reader

Vice.com Reveals John McAfee's Location In iPhone Metadata

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169 pointsMarlonPro104 comments

This whole thing is hilarious: http://www.whoismcafee.com/another-apology/

Also, why does he have like 40 ways to share an article? I'd never even heard of half of these social networks.

Good-old Wordpress plugins.

I can't say for sure whether or not John McAfee is innocent or not, if he were to get caught he would not get a fair trial in the country where he currently resides. His money and assets would all be taken from him, he'd be thrown into a cell and possibly tortured. There is something about the way McAfee handles himself that leads me to believe this guy might have some mental issues and require attention of a medical professional, he is obviously paranoid and whether or not it's warranted, I think there's a bigger underlying issue here.

Something seems fishy about all of this. The photo looks extremely fake (inconsistent lighting direction). Even if this were all true, why would Vice post the data including his address? If John were to be killed, the blood would be on Vice and the author's hands for getting him killed, where is the decency?

"His money and assets would all be taken from him, he'd be thrown into a cell and possibly tortured."

He isn't in the backwater of Afghanistan, he's in a democratic country with an independent judiciary. What makes you think he would be tortured, let alone killed?

He seems to suffer from interactions with corrupt police. They could certainly beat the shit out of him after arrest with very few consequences. That's true even in the US.

As an example of special circumstances: how's Bradley Manning's trial coming along?

That's a Logical fallacy. This has nothing to do with Bradley Manning.

As far as you and I know Mcafee quite possibly killed his neighbour. Why shouldn't the authorities in the country where the crime was committed get hold of him?

If the dead neighbour had been an American celebrity, this argument would sound very different.

> This has nothing to do with Bradley Manning.

Yes it has, in the context of the present argument. Grandparent is saying that because you supposedly are in a "democratic country with an independent judiciary" doesn't mean that you won't be tortured/get a fair trial/etc., and uses Bradley Manning as an example of this.

If you are going to call something out as fallacious, you should name which fallacy it is. Otherwise your statement is just as good as saying 'you are wrong!'

Not to sidetrack things, but Manning was not a civilian, and thus does not enjoy the same freedoms under the law as a civilian. So comparing a civilian's (Mcafee's) fate with that of a non-civilian is apples and oranges.

Manning is still supposed to have the right to due process (a speedy trial rather than indefinite detention) and freedom from torture.

Military justice is not the same as civilian justice -one's rights are curtailed. Thst's not to say your assertion is incorrect, rather, it might give the impression one might have rights akin to that a civilian --that, I understand, would be incorrect.

The rights that are relevant to this discussion, primarily the right to not be tortured, is still in full effect for military personnel.

He's had due process for awhile: http://m.csmonitor.com/USA/Latest-News-Wires/2012/1202/Heari...

That's true, but all humans have the same human rights and he's a human, so the law is largely irrelevant in any discussion regarding ethics and democratic ideals.

Well, a few days ago he testified about the conditions of his incarceration in a pre-trial hearing: http://m.csmonitor.com/USA/Latest-News-Wires/2012/1202/Heari...

Last time i checked Belize and Guatemala have very poor justice systems.. It's better than Afghanistan but still not first world.

http://www.heritage.org/index/country/guatemala

I'm not going to defend the Belize justice system. But I wouldn't depend on the Heritage Foundation for any objective information. It's a right wing think tank.

Why would that matter? They show their methodology, the "corruption" index is mostly taken from Transparency International's Corruption Perception Index, where Belize and Guatemala do not do well.

you say poor justice, how comparable to the poor justice in the USA? would he be tortured without trial? do they have death penalty?

We are talking about a country here where money is king. If you have money, you have clout and influence. There's nothing stopping anyone taking assets and offing him in some remote desolate field where nobody would find him. Considering the amount of attention McAfee has received, if he were to disappear there would be some serious questions so I doubt they'd kill him.

I don't know, would there actually be questions if he disappeared? The guy seems pretty crazy, if he dropped off the face of the earth completely I don't think I would really think much of it.

Now, if he or the government announced that he were captured, then he disappeared, that would certainly be different.

> We are talking about a country here where money is king. If you have money, you have clout and influence.

So... every country?

You think there are no government-driven assassinations even in democraties with "independent" judiciary ? You live in a very safe world, then. This being said, I know nothing about Belize so this comment may or may not apply to that part of the world.

I don't understand why you would assert that he is in a democratic country with an independent judiciary when Belize's corruption index is extremely high. See for yourself (it's near the bottom of the list):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption_Perceptions_Index

The real question is why you would make unfounded claims like that.

Perhaps he should have thought about that before going to live there?

Definitely he should have thought about it before running some sort of drug lab, hanging around with gangsters, and possibly even murdering someone.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just-world_hypothesis

> Even if this were all true, why would Vice post the data including his address?

Same reason everyone else posts images with EXIF geolocation data from their iphone in them -- they don't think about it, they never knew or forgot that the iPhone added this to photos.

apparently if they get him he'll be given a 90 day trial...

I downvoted you for a couple of reasons. 1. You say you're not sure if he's innocent, but yet you cast aspersions on the legal system, as if it's better for him to not be caught. 2. Photo does not look fake, and Vice most likely forgot about EXIF data. Not like they deliberately attached the address to the photo.

By the way, "blood would be on Vice and the author's hands, where is the decency?" - wow, really?

That's fair, you're inclined to downvote if you feel it's right. Only John knows if he's innocent and unless Belize has some smoking gun they're either going to manipulate evidence to convict him or he'll get a fine and walk free. As far as I am aware they've said they only want to talk to John, he's not charged with anything he's merely a suspect who won't get a fair trial. The aspersions on the legal system are somewhat warranted, Belize doesn't have a glowing reputation when it comes to a fair justice system. Here's a story from 7 News Belize from 2011 that points this out: http://www.7newsbelize.com/sstory.php?nid=20213

As for the photo looking fake, I'm not the first to notice the image looks a little unbelievable. Look at the contrast on his skin; tricky shadows from lighting interference or something else at play? The photo looks like it was taken using a 0.8 megapixel webcam on a laptop from 1999.

And fair enough about the EXIF data, however I find it hard to believe that a "security expert" like John McAfee would make such an amateur mistake like letting an image with location identifying data be put up online. John obviously needs some psychiatric help, the dude is obviously deteriorating if you read his posts they're sounding more and more like ramblings of someone with an unravelling mind.

> if you read his posts they're sounding more and more like ramblings of someone with an unravelling mind.

I've read his posts. They are entertaining, but they are nothing like ramblings of someone with an unravelling mind.

Do you find it easier to believe now that he has admitted the coordinates were correct and the image was real, and has deleted his earlier "apology" in which he claimed to have faked the EXIF? Or do you still think the "contrast on his skin" points to a greater conspiracy?

By the way, how long have you been an expert on the Belizean justice system?

I don't see the inconsistent lighting directions folks are talking about. I'm curious what directions you guys are seeing. (FWIW - I'm a photographer). I read the lighting direction as potentially about 4pm from the photographer and rather lowish (some shade over subjects), McAfee's face shaded by the other subject, and some of the other differences (highlight on top of VICE guy's shoulder versus McAfee's for instance) very explainable by the dappled light from trees above them and in the background. Maybe I'm missing something though, I definitely haven't spent much time attempting to identify fake photos :)

Agreed on the lighting. Perspective is a bit off though, and his face also appears to have less contrast than the reporters'. Both of these could be due to a smudge on the lens, but I wouldn't be surprised if it does turn out to be a cardboard cut-out.

The strangest thing for me is why on earth would a reporter publish a picture where he stuck his finger in front of the lens? Everybody is relaxed, sure there was time to take another one?

It's clearly cardboard. Once you see it, you can't unsee it.

It's a shot from McAfee's own camera, which I guess he handed to another guy for a quick pic. McAfee also says he created some kind of emergency which forced the Vice guys to publish quickly so they wouldn't mess with the EXIF data.

> inconsistent lighting direction

He appears to be standing under a canopy of trees.

Look, I get it, it's funny, but please stop throwing conspiratory shit around. The most likely explanation, by far, is that the photo is real and the EXIF tags are real. If the photo is not real, why care about the tags? You weren't there. And if the photo was real, but the tags are fake, why tell the police so?

But if the photo is real, and the EXIF tags are real, then, and only then, it makes sense to claim you modified them to throw the cops around. Well, it makes sense only if you're delusional, naive or extremely desperate. Any of which could be applied to McAfee. Dude's psycho. Remember that story he posted about how he stood six hours in his porch at night while he was stalked by "cops hiding in bushes", waking up covered in puke and babbling? He's completely lost it. Those jerkass Vice guys should've just got him to a Guatemalan psychiatrist, instead of making "ironic" bitch jokes and laughing at a mentally disturbed person. Fucking hipsters make me sick.

And yeah, the photo is real. Sure, the head is blurred, it looks fake. Just cover it with something and look at the body. Tada, it's real. The head distortion is just those fat fingers on cam sticking grease over the lens.

"Desperate" about sums it up. Here's the latest bit, in which he retracts the other bit: http://www.whoismcafee.com/guatemala/

Quote:

  Vice Magazine reporters are indeed with me in Guatemala.    
  Yesterday was chaotic due to the accidental release of my 
  exact co-ordinates by an unseasoned technician at Vice 
  headquarters.  We made it to safety in spite of this 
  handicap.  I had to cancel numerous interviews with the 
  press yesterday because of this and I apologize to all of 
  those affected.

What is with the desire to villanize him? As much as people hate intrusive governments here, there is also this opinion that anyone who might be a criminal is just a shit person and deserves no respect.

I'd call it resourceful. To have my location leaked like that and have the forethought to engage in that much subterfuge while physically fleeing?

What forethought & subterfuge? Lying about your location after it's leaked is not subtle and was made up on the fly, according to his own account. (Also I'm not vilianizing him, not sure why you thought that.)

I agree, I think I was projecting others' comments on you which was unfair. I think "desperate" is probably the right characterization and doesn't really comment on his situation otherwise, sorry.

Regarding McAfee's explanation...how do we know that it was his phone used to take the photo and not VICE's? If you were a fugitive...why would you hand your phone over to anyone to take a photo...when it's just as easy for them to take the photo using their own camera? And who is likely to be too dumb to turn off mobile phone GPS? A fugitive or a writer?

Also, as the OP points out, it's not usually the case that the escapee puts together a ruse and then exposes the ruse before it fools anyone. You usually do that after the authorities swoop down on the wrong location, if movies have taught me anything.

Maybe it's just me, but the photo itself looks very fake, specifically John McAfee, more specifically his head and the lighting. Why is his head distorted/skewed (on his left eye area, as if from the lens) when the other guys head isn't. There are way better compositors where I work, oh well maybe he just has a crooked smile/face. :P

Any chance the picture itself is a fake? He looks like a cardboard cutout propped up against a bush.

Yes, that looks like a cardboard cutout. The lighting looks different on his arms.

The light source on the guy with the dark hair is from the right. The lighting on mcafee looks like its coming from straight ahead/beneath.

Why is everybody falling for this? It looks so fake!

Not really, no. The light on the hands could just as easily be a reflection of something. I have a couple photos taken with a fancy canon SLR which have become a running joke in our household because they look so fake, but aren't.

It's also worth noting that the difference in lighting can be explained by the bamboo. The guy in the blue is getting direct sunlight from the right of the frame, but McAfee is, in part, shielded from it because of the plant.

It probably isn't fake. The original image is also a better resolution where it looks much more real.

Where is that better resolution picture? All the ones I've seen look fake to me. And not because of lighting. The image of him just looks very flat. No depth. And the angles of his head to body look like a picture was taken of him at a slight angle, printed on a flat board and then placed straight to the camera.

Interesting to see that Eugene Kaspersky[0], creator of McAfee competitor Kasperksy Anti-Virus, posted in the comments. Do these two know one another personally?

0: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugene_Kaspersky

With that comment form, anybody can be anybody.

Why would they post his location though...that's messed up.

If he gets held by the authorities and executed, that blood is on the original poster's hands.

This is vice we're talking about. That would be welcome publicity to them.

I'm just glad (yea, i'm rooting for McAfee) McAfee seems to be aware of the situation. Whether or not he's bluffing about the exif data being edited, at least he knows this is out there.

Well Vice didn't post his location. They posted the photo.

It's the mobile privacy guys that looked for the EXIF data and posted that.

True, still, careless on Vice's behalf none the less. You'd think Vice would have some interest in protecting sources, I can remember them trying to pass for 'journalism' at least a few times.

Why doesnt Vice's website CMS strip exif data from public facing images? Seems stupid. Sites like Imgur.com get this right.

And yet people complain that imgur strips exif data.

Striping all exif data is maybe a little extreme, but striping most might not be that bad (i.e. create a white list of tags, things like rotation, etc). That said, in a case like this, it would make more sense to strip it all (maybe replace it with a copyright notice or something).

Most likely whoever posted it just didn't know about it.

Exactly. Vice. People. Fuck. Have you ever read vice before? Bunch of cold, fucking exploitative hipsters. (Truth zone)

"If he gets held by the authorities and executed,"

I think 'then it's his own fault for moving to a banana republic tax haven' is the punchline to that joke.

I don't find it funny. So what if he moved to a 'banana republic tax haven', aka home to millions of people, that means he should be turned over to crooked officials and executed?

Come on man...I know this is the internet, but this is someone's life we are talking about.

Not to mention he is a revered entrepreneur. Even if you don't like him, he built a software company from the ground-up and sold it to Intel.

I would think that given where you are (HN) and who he is, there would be more compassion. He is like one of our own.

"that means he should be turned over to crooked officials and executed?"

That's a straw man; no, he shouldn't be unjustly executed. My point is that's a risk you take by living in Belize. Or Somalia, another Libertarian Paradise.

If you're so scared of routine police questioning in the murder of your neighbor that you have to go on a McAfee-style trip to Bizarro world; sleeping in ditches and drinking your own urine[1] maybe the alternative of paying taxes isn't the great satan millionaires make it out to be. Or maybe he killed the guy.

"Not to mention he is a revered entrepreneur."

Who made his millions on the back of a society built in no small part on public investments which he is attempting to dodge. Don't let the Death Squad hit you on the way out.

[1] I'm making this up but it matches my general impression of the McAfee fugitive drama.

John McAfee did not sell MCAF (previously NETA, previously McAfee Associates) to Intel. He was long gone by the time I got there in 1998. The company uses his name as marketing, but he hasn't influenced it since before Windows 98.

"held by the authorities and executed, that blood is on the original poster's hands."

This is hyperbole. There's nothing to suggest that he would not receive a fair trial other than the paranoid ramblings from McAfee himself.

He quite possibly killed his neighbour. Why shouldn't the authorities get hold of this guy?

Do you genuinely believe that anybody would receive a fair trial in Belize?

I'm coming from a country significantly closer to the developed world than Belize, and yet people generally don't have fair trials here. I can't imagine how much worse it is in Belize.

I have to think that the guy who bears all the responsibility for whatever happens is the attention-seeking fugitive who invites media to tag along. Don't like that information leaks? Well, then don't do that then!

Sucks to see a "Website is currently unreachable" with a Cloudflare icon/logo/link at the bottom...

Anyone interested in McAfee's story should listen to his recent (within the past few days) interview on Joe Rogan's podcast http://itun.es/i6Dv3dH

This is a man who purposely sent a double to the mexican border to get arrested.

Impossible to really know if he is guilty or not but this is one crazy story.

I think you mean a man who says he sent a double to the mexican border to get arrested.

More specifically: http://www.hotelmarinananajuana.com ;-)

Funny read. I wonder what is happening with that guy.

Jesus Vice staff are a bunch of children. "Suckers"? tags: "Suck it bitches" ?

vice staff sure do have a case of tiny penis syndrome.

I think you have to acknowledge that vice magazine is written with a certain amount of irony intended.

It seems people here at HN don't know much about vice and hard core hipster stuff. They only know node.js hipster.

McAfee should have known better!

Link isn't working.

Sounds like John may have been a step ahead. (He claims to have editted the EXIF data in an apology to VICE mag.)

http://www.whoismcafee.com/another-apology/

Calling shenanigans on this one. McAffee is almost certainly bluffing.

It does kind of seem like, if it was a ruse, he wouldn't want to tell anyone that it was.

It could also be a double-bluff - by looking clumsy, he sends attention to this place where he's not.

You fool! You fell victim to one of the classic blunders - The most famous of which is "never get involved in a land war in Asia"

Risk2210: or the moon. Nuke commander!

This. He acts incredibly paranoid - a lot of what he puts online is misinformation to protect himself. When he fled the country he made sure to write blog posts and report to others that he'd lost all of his money (since there's still a wrongful death suit with his name on it).

I'm sure he freaked out when the metadata was uncovered - probably fled Guatemala immediately.

He says I, for my own safety, manipulated the xif data on the image taken from my cellphone, and created a fake emrgency so that the urgency of movement led, as I knew it would, to the hasty posting on their website.

Spelling mistakes aside, what does that even mean? The first part I can parse; but what fake emergency? What urgency of movement? Is he referring back to the posts about his being caught? And he manipulated the EXIF to trick Vice to make them blog about it more rapidly?

Perhaps his goal was to bring attention to the EXIF issue. Not enough people realize that their location is transparently embedded in the photos they take. This should be an opt-in feature that the user has to work for to enable. It should never be an option that I might accept by hitting "OK" to many times.

Seems like an odd crusade to go on. Worthy certainly, but I would be surprised if he were taking the time to go on such crusades at a time like this.

My guess is he just fucked up. Paranoid != Smart/careful.

I think McAffee means to claim the photo was taken and the EXIF data was manipulated on his iPhone, then he created a 'fake emergency' and told the Vice reporters they would have to move urgently so that they would post the photo online immediately.

Obvious question: Who is more likely to be waving an iPhone around; the extremely paranoid McAffee who has been on the run for weeks, presumably without a stable source of electricity, or the Vice reporters who have just been flown in, presumably from London?

How does he update his blog multiple times a day without power of some kind?

He has pre-written material that someone else is posting on his behalf. He claims to have up to a year of blog posts written up on the event of his capture.

Only a severely paranoid person would take the time to write a year's worth of blog entries on the off chance he became a fugitive. Even then, what advantage does it give him? Some misdirection, certainly, but simply disappearing would be just as effective.

Occam suggests he IS writing the blog entries, and I'd say the GPS coords are accurate via the same reasoning.

And looking at the bigger picture, his behaviour suggests he was intimately involved in the murder. I don't know much about Belize's police force, but I would be surprised if he was at a greater risk of death by cooperating with them than by going on the run - particularly with his fame.

In fact his behaviour reminds me most of Charlie Sheen's drug-addled antics last year. Sad to see someone fall so far.

> Only a severely paranoid person would take the time to write a year's worth of blog entries on the off chance he became a fugitive. Even then, what advantage does it give him? Some misdirection, certainly, but simply disappearing would be just as effective.

McAffee stated this in one of his earlier blog posts [1]. The blog is administered by a third party, and although a lot of the content is written by McAffee, most of it appears to be pre-prepared.

[1] http://www.whoismcafee.com/if-i-am-captured/

Yeah, it's like a bad spy movie where the villain is sure to explain his plan to everyone so that the good guys can swoop in just as he's finished telling his plan.

Wow, what cunning genius to explain your ruse. Live blogging your flee from authority is just well... dumb...

Here's an idea, get the hell out of South America and shut up.

Well....that sounds simplistic, but suppose he doesn't want to leave South America. Why should he?

The way he stays alive is by staying in the public eye.

It makes total sense for him to do what he wants to do.

  Well....that sounds simplistic, but suppose he doesn't 
  want to leave South America. Why should he?

To avoid bad and corrupt justice systems he seems to think will torture/wrongly convict/murder him?

(Belize and Guatemala aren't in South America.)

Whatever happened, I am disappointed they are going to part ways. I think that vice reporting on his life would have been very interesting.

kwestin, you've been hellbanned - no idea why, looks like a mistake to me.

If you want an easy way to read image metadata, check out the free iPhone App: Photo Investigator https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/id571574618?mt=8

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