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The infamous John McAfee has lambasted the US government as being so technologically “illiterate” and so incompetent at protecting the country’s digital assets that it can hardly call itself a superpower any more. The eccentric millionaire, founder and former owner of McAfee virus vendor (now owned by Intel), offered his assistance to the FBI in cracking the encryption of the San Bernardino shooter’s iPhone.
The FBI and Apple have been embroiled in a public and legal battle regarding the encryption of the phone, with the former demanding that the tech giant develop means to unlock and decrypt the phone. McAfee volunteered himself and his team, implying they could hack the phone with little difficulty. US authorities, according to McAfee, simply lack the resources and know-how to do so themselves.
McAfee has been critical of the US government’s technical abilities for a long time. For a brief while, he even put himself in the running in the 2016 presidential race in an effort to raise awareness of US technical shortcomings.
The problem, according to McAfee, stems from the way government works. For starters, “nobody gets fired,” McAfee said. Instead of facing the consequences of incompetence or lacklustre efforts, they get promoted. What’s more, the US government simply doesn’t hire the right people.
The FBI is famously facing a shortage of competent hackers, as they refuse to hire anyone who smokes cannabis. Russia and China have no such qualms, McAfee said. They simply hire the best hackers in the world.
McAfee also had some advice for the general public. Laptops and personal computers shouldn’t worry anyone too much, as “very few people hack these anymore.” Smartphones, however, are a different matter.
