Hello,

Probably not in the foreseeable future. Probably the next thing up is an IAmA on Reddit, I'd guess.

Regards,

Aryeh Goretsky

Hello,

I think that's actually a pretty damn valid question. While it might be interesting for us to ask Mr. Kaspersky technical questions (technology used by his lab, questions about the OS he's developing, etc.), when it comes down to, a large amount of malware which attacks corporate infrastructure is hosted on consumer (i.e., residential) IP blocks. Of course, there's also things like targeted infections, spearphishing, etc., but even those have to deploy from somewhere.

Remediation also tends to be a little different in the corporate world (wipe and reload) versus consumer (disinfect and repair), and if you've every had to fix a PC for a friend or family, you know how long the latter can sometimes take

So, what I was interested in was what single activity Mr. Kaspersky thought would do the greatest good for consumer users. I'm sorry if that's not something you want to hear aboutâ"and that might not necessarily be news for nerdsâ"but it probably is something that would help people who fight malware all day, whether it be on home PCs or corporate networks.

Regards,

Aryeh Goretsky

Hello,

That was a rude and uncalled-for comment. GirlInTraining may have indeed said something tasteless, but your reply only exacerbates the situation.

Regards,

Aryeh Goretsky

Hello,

From RTFA'ing, it seems that Guatemala and Belize have no mutual legal assistance treat and are, in fact, engaged in a territorial dispute over their border, so I am wondering why Guatemala would bother sending him back to Belize, as opposed to escorting him to the airport and putting him on the next plane out of the country, wherever that might be. Or Mr. McAfee* could certainly afford a flight back to the United States, Switzerland or pretty much any other place.

Even more strange is the report from CBS News quoting Guatemala's Interior Minister Mauricio Lopez Bonilla that "McAfee was detained by police at a hotel in an upscale Guatemala City neighborhood with the help of Interpol agents" (emphasis mine) as Interpol agents do not have arrest powers. Interpol can request that someone be provisionally arrested in order for them to be extradited, but a search of the Wanted Person's database on their web site reveals that no such "Red Notice" has been issued for John McAfee.

I do hope that Mr. McAfee is treated fairly by the Belizean authorities, and that his concerns of abuse and torture at their hands is simply an irrational fear.
Regards,

Aryeh Goretsky

*I was told earlier that is improper to use a title of Doctor since his doctorate is an an honorary degree.

Hello,

If there was one piece of behavior you could change in home Internet users, what would it be?

Regards,

Aryeh Goretsky

Hello,

I have actually been reading Dr. McAfee's blog, The Hinterland, since it started, as well as his replies to comments and listened to his interviews. I also worked for him for about eleven years across different companies and have known him for about twice as long.

While at times Dr. McAfee does sound like he is under stress and duressâ"he's snapped at a number of commentators at times for not reading earlier blog postsâ"he has remained cogent and lucid throughout these events, and a determination to see justice done: Dr. McAfee has offered an award of $25,000BZ (about $12,500USD) for information leading to the capture and arrest of the murderer of his neighbor, which is more than anyone else has done, including the government down there. He has also shown occasional glimpses of a wry sense of humor about how things are going, which seems to indicate a full understanding of the situation and use of his faculties.

While there are a lot of things about this case which do not make sense, there are a quite a few which do, such as Dr. McAfee's increasing difficulties with Belizean politicians when he refused to pay them bribes. This has been documented in the Belizean press.

Your comments about Dr. McAfee sound mean spirited and based more on wishful thinking than anything else.

Regards,

Aryeh Goretsky

Hello,

I suppose it is simpler to believe in some kind of wild conspiracy theory than it is to believe that Microsoft listened to its customers and fixed things.

And if your claim were true and Microsoft was so successful doing this, why hasn't Windows 8 taken off?

Regards,

Aryeh Goretsky

Hello,

This seems similar in nature to the work Dr. Sarah Gordon did while speaking with and investigating computer virus writers back in the 1990s. Unlike Coleman, though, Gordon seems to have focused more on criminal hackers. Very interesting reading.

Regards,

Aryeh Goretsky

Hello,

I am a former employee of Dr. John McAfee here, and would like to see if I can clear up some of the misperceptions about him that have arisen in this thread.

John took a leave of absence from McAfee Associates in 1993 for health reasons, which became permanent in 1994, and he divested himself of interest in the company as quickly as he could (i.e., subject to stock lockouts and the like). At the time he left, McAfee Associates had DOS, Novell, OS/2 and Windows 3.1 products. He certainly had nothing to do with the design or development of McAfee Associates' products after that. As a matter of fact, if it just says "McAfee" on it (sans "Associates"), it's pretty much a given that he was not involved with it.

I first met John when I was in high school, and started working for him after I graduated. One of the first things he did after employing me was read me the riot act regarding drugs and alcohol. At the time, he had been sober for just under a decade (eight or nine years, I think), but prior to that told me about how he had abused all sorts of substances, and as a result he had never done a single thing in his life that was worthwhile before quitting. I took John's advice to heart and have avoided these all my life.

While John was running McAfee Associates, we had a strict no alcohol/no drugs policy, and there was no drinking allowed at the company, at company events or even just going out for a meal. Showing up drunk, stoned or otherwise impaired would be a great way to get yourself fired.

In Belize, John started up several business ventures, one of which was looking at bacterial quorum sensing as an antibiotic. That fell through, and he changed focus to topical antiseptic compounds. He had reporters coming through all the time, as well as people, I believe, from the national hospital and university, so it should have been readily apparent to those who were knowledgeable in such matters that he was doing bio-pharmaceutical prospecting and not running a meth lab.

That said, it is particularly understandable how law enforcement would feel about a rich expat coming to their company and setting up a research lab. It probably looked like a cleaner, better-equipped version of the drug labs they were used to raiding. If the police had talked to the health officials, they could probably have arranged for regular inspections.

John has had continuous run-in's with politicians in Belize over the years, which you can read about over in his blog or elsewhere in the news. Without getting into the details of how Belize operates, it is apparent he believes that country's politicians are corrupt and is fearful for his life as a consequence. Just looking at the responses from the police and politicians there, it seems they are doing little to allay his fears. Calling him names is not going to help, nor is not addressing his claims of corruption or claims that they are holding his former employees hostage.

A lot of the conversations I have seen revolve around calling John McAfee crazy, paranoid, bonkers and so forth. But consider this: Each time he says something outlandish about where he his hiding, how he is monitoring things, et cetera, he causes law enforcement to expend efforts to find him. In a sense, it is kind of a war of attrition against them. In that context, this is not crazy at all, but rather very sensible and practical behavior in light of current circumstances.

Anyhow, I hope that puts things into context about the man behind the name.

Regards,

Aryeh Goretsky

Hello,

It would be interesting to know the scope of the problem(s), and how to exercise the(se) bug(s).

I have had a Nokia Lumia 920 for just under a week now (replacing my year old Nokia Lumia 900) and have not noted any performance or battery-life related issues with it. Admittedly, I have not done that much with it yet, as I am still reloading applications onto it (an area which is keen for improvement), but I have to say it has worked consistently without problem.

I wonder if the problems are due to a specific application or manufacturer-applied configuration.

Regards,

Aryeh Goretsky

Hello,

Over on SlashBI, Slashdot's Business Intelligence channel, is an article which may be of interest: Windows 8 Security: What You Need to Know.

Regards,

Aryeh Goretsky

Hello,

When it comes to servers, I use comparatively few (a small lab with a few rack's worth that used for research projects) at work, so I'm wondering what sort of tasks these would be useful for? It sounds like they'll run RHEL and other Linux distributions, but even after looking at the second slide in this presentation, it's unclear to me advantage this would be to a a small business, or, in my case, a small department in a larger organization.

Is this new CPU/server line intended only for the enterprise? If so, what would the "trickle down effect" be for small groups like my own? Also, why would someone want to throw out their investment in existing hardware (including whatever talent they might have at programming and maintaining said hardware) for a design that's relatively proprietary?

Regards,

Aryeh Goretsky

Hello,

McAfee SiteAdvisor has reclassified the site as not having any significant problems. You can view the updated report at http://www.siteadvisor.com/sites/goretsky.com.

Regards,

Aryeh Goretsky

Hello,

Well, I don't think there are currently any better firms than my employer in the industry. Come to think of it, Kaspersky Lab is probably the closest thing we have to a direct competitor, at least in terms of researchers.

Regards,

Aryeh Goretsky

/me waves @ AJ :)