John McAfee made a surprise appearance at Defcon to warn the audience of the threats against their freedom as technology and its impact on privacy issues are now a worldwide concern.
As he spoke at the hacking conference, McAfee appealed to hackers and told them to "make a stand" against entities that are looking for highly personal piece of information.
"Google would like us to believe that if we have nothing to hide, we should not mind if everybody knows everything that we do," said McAfee. "If everybody knew everything about everybody else, what would human behavior become? You need to think this through."
A computer security pioneer, John McAfee is the creator of a virus scanning program that sports his name. With headquarters found at Santa Clara, California, McAfee is billed as the largest dedicated security technology company in the world
McAfee, realizing the proliferation of apps and websites that gather information from users, blames everything on laziness.
"We'd rather be safe, secure and comfortable than actually life," said McAfee. "We cannot have intrusions into our lives and still have freedom. Freedom is all I have. And it's all you have, if you think about it."
In 2012, McAfee was accused of committing murder against his neighbor while he was staying in Belize. Soon after the incident, McAfee decided to flee from the country while denying the charges.
In January 2014, McAfee discussed in an interview about the dangers brought by botnets that run on the Internet of Things (IoT). Later on, he reveals that the antivirus company that he founded has stopped bearing his name. The company is now bought by Intel for $7 billion in 2010.
Apart from warning people about Google, McAfee also announced in Defcon that he's doing a new project. Dubbed as Brown List, the project's purpose is to help people thwart injustice. It is a new website where people can vent their anger online, although some have already been doing it in Facebook and in other social media sites. McAfee explained that he created the site so that ordinary people can lodge their complaints on practically anything from government corruption to unsatisfactory consumer products.
"The website taps into anger in a positive way," McAfee said.
