A while ago you had a chance to ask John McAfee about his past, politics, and what he has planned for the future. As usual, John answered with extreme frankness, with some interesting advice for anyone stuck at a checkpoint in the third world. Below you can read all his answers to your questions.

Prior to 1983 I was a synthesis of corporate manager and drug dealer. The drug dealer profession took priority, and for a period of time that was my only occupation. Well .. taking the drugs that I sold also became a principal occupation. I gave up taking drugs and dealing drugs in 1983.

During my drug dealing days I became adept at those talents required of a successful drug dealer: clandestine travel through the Third World countries that produce and transport the goods; dealing with corrupt officials; dealing with drug lords and drug traffickers; successfully passing checkpoints; bribery, and in emergencies, the methods of escape.

The most powerful tool a traveler can possess is a Press card. It will allow you to completely bypass the “documentation” process if you have limited time or limited funds and don’t want to deal with it. I have dozens stashed in all my vehicles, in my wallet, in my pockets, in my boats.

(...)

The press card is powerful, but has risks and limitations. Do not attempt this magic, for example, at a Federale checkpoint in Mexico on a desolate road late at night. You will merely create additional, and unpleasant work for the person assigned to dig the hole where they intend to place you.

Documentation is the polite word for “cash”.

The real art of producing documentation is the subtle play of how much to produce. In some countries, a policeman makes less than a dollar an hour. At a checkpoint, a policeman will usually share his proceeds with the other officers lounging by the side of the road and with the police Chief. The Chief will get about 25% in countries like Colombia and Panama, so if there are three officers total, then a ten-dollar contribution will end up with about $2.50 in each person’s pocket – a good take for someone making about a dollar an hour in legitimate salary.

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Do not get out of the car, even if ordered to do so. Your car is your only avenue of escape. It’s a ton or more of steel capable of doing serious harm to anyone foolish enough to stand in front of it, and once underway is difficult to stop. The checkpoint police in Central America never chase anyone down, in spite of years of watching U.S. Television and action movies. It’s too much work, plus they could have an accident. It’s not worth it for an unknown quantity. And they won’t shoot, unless you’ve run over one of them while driving off. It makes noise and wastes a round that they must account for when they return to the station – creating potential problems with the higher-ups. Not that I recommend running. It’s just that outside of the car you have lost the only advantage you have.

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Remember: 50% of the police who stop you in most Third World countries can’t read. This is a powerful piece of information for the wise.

If you actually are carrying contraband, of any kind – drugs, guns, Taiwanese sex slaves – whatever, and are caught, then the actions that you take within the first few seconds of discovery will have a profound impact on the rest of your life. The reality is: You have been caught. The officers have options:

1. Arrest you and charge you, where you are likely to confess to other people about exactly what you were carrying and how much – thereby limiting the policemen’s ability to make off with much of the cache.
2. Come to some arrangement with you that is mutually beneficial and that does not include your demise, or create any undue risks to the officers’ jobs or safety.

Option 2 is obviously preferable. To anyone not fond of prisons, that is.

Knowing the name of the country’s Police Commissioner and Armed Forces Chief, and the Chief of Police for each county or town you will be driving through can be very helpful. Knowing all the mayor’s names will not hurt any either. Name-dropping is a powerful tool in the Third World, especially for gringos, if used appropriately. Telling a cop in America that you are friends with the mayor or the police chief will seldom help you avoid a traffic ticket, and may even increase the charges. In Central America, offending a Police Commissioner will immediately get a policeman fired, with no repercussions to the Commissioner, and, depending on the offense, may even get the officer “erased”. So it gives an officer serious pause when you say: “The drugs belong to Commissioner (insert name). I am delivering them to a friend for him”.

Warner Brothers has already announced a movie. The screenplay is based on the E-book by Josh Davis

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Impact Future Media is also doing a movie. I am co-operating fully with them

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As to who should play me, I think we would all agree that Morgan Freeman is the obvious choice.

I don’t trust anything or anyone. I’m not remotely cynical, I’m just old and I’ve seen a lot. I trust people to be human, meaning all the weaknesses known to humanity exist in all of us. And everyone has a price. For some people it may not be money. It may be a daughter or a wife, which is why Cartel operatives are so fond of kidnapping family members. If someone sends you your daughter’s ear, then to get the other ear back with daughter attached you might happily betray all of your friends. If not that, then maybe it is your reputation, or your job, or torture, or even your life. Everyone has a price. It’s always something. If the previous two axioms are taken as given, then clearly, you can trust no-one.

Companies are even worse. They have all of the weaknesses that humans possess (they are made up of humans after all) and absolutely none of the virtues. They are a derivative of profit, and profit is amoral.

what advice would you give to Pete(r Norton) to get his name off the second worst software on the planet?

McAfee: Yes. Grow a beard.

The fire was never investigated. Investigation as a method of solving crimes is a novel idea that has not yet caught on in Belize, or much of Central America for that matter. Police investigators are engaged primarily in uncovering indiscretions within the general population for which they can demand money for keeping their mouths shut - an intricate and beautiful art that reached its zenith with incarnation of J. Edgar Hoover here in in America.

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Of course the government was involved. And of course I would never go back.

I saw yesterday in USA Today that you were on the run because a drug cartel had a $600,000+ hit on you. If you got out of the business of doing and dealing drugs in the '80s, why are the drug cartels still interested in you?

McAfee: While I chose to get out of the drug business, the Government of Belize has not so chosen. My problem with the government is not drugs, but the fact that I uncovered rampant corruption of all kinds throughout the Government. The government is closely associated with cartels and has limited pull outside of Belize. So asking the Cartel to help them is a reasonable solution for them.

Our first privacy application is out on Google Play as of 3 days ago. It is called DCentral1. With DCentral1, you can see what information installed applications have been granted access to. One touch starts a scan that scores apps based off of their requested uses. It will tell you which apps listen to you by accessing the phone’s microphone, which apps watch you using the built in camera and video capabilities, which apps are reading your e-mails and text messages, which apps are sending messages or emails without alerting you, etc. You will be shocked at the results of a scan, I can guarantee you.

DON'T Download this. Don't trust this man's app. Just take the idea that these apps we download are most likely data farming our life via the phones. Be careful what you allow on your phone and cover those lenses up.

The attorney for the House Ways and Means Committee contacted me and asked if I would help. I said “no”. I would never run for office, neither would I want to be in office, of any kind. I would rather drive a nail through my foot.

McAfee picks a bullet off the floor and fixes me with wide eyes. "This is a bullet, right?" he says in the congenial southern accent that has stuck with him since his boyhood in Virginia.

"Let's put the gun back," I tell him. I'd come here to try to understand why the government of Belize was accusing him of assembling a private army and entering the drug trade. It seemed implausible that a wildly successful tech entrepreneur would disappear into the Central American jungle and become a narco-trafficker. Now I'm not so sure.

But he explains that the accusations are a fabrication. "Maybe what happened didn't actually happen," he says, staring hard at me. "Can I do a demonstration?"

He loads the bullet into the revolver and spins the cylinder.
"This scares you, right?" he says. Then he puts the gun to his head.
My heart rate kicks up. "Yeah, I'm scared," I admit.

"We don't have to do this."
"I know we don't," he says, the muzzle pressed against his temple. And then he pulls the trigger. Nothing happens. He pulls it three more times in rapid succession. There are only five chambers.

"Reholster the gun," I demand.

He keeps his eyes fixed on me and pulls the trigger a fifth time. Still nothing. With the gun still to his head, he starts pulling the trigger incessantly. "I can do this all day long," he says to the sound of the hammer clicking. "I can do this ten thousand times. Nothing will ever happen. Why? Because you have missed something. You are operating on an assumption about reality that is wrong."

It's the same thing, he argues, with the government's accusations. They were a smokescreen -- an attempt to distort reality -- but there's one thing everybody agrees on: the trouble really got rolling in the predawn murk of April 30, 2012.