Inside the mind of John (antivirus founder extraordinaire) McAfee, we now find a “new and revolutionary technology” that is said to give us back our squandered privacy from the NSA. A long standing battle began since the Snowden leaks, only to bring increased awareness to the public eye about the eyes that have been on us. With this in mind, McAfee did what he does best. By living up to his standard as a tech world wild child, audiences rose in awe of his revelation to build an inexpensive, pocket sized gadget used to thwart the NSA's spying on Americans everyday internet tasks.

At the San Jose McEnery Convention Center on Saturday, McAfee announced this new, $100 device. Dubbed “D-Central”, the gadget serves to communicate with tablets, smart phones and laptops as a way to decentralize networks so they are incapable of being accessed by government entities. Apparently, he has been working on this for a few years, far before whistle blowers spoke and documents were exposed. To no surprise, his efforts have increased four-fold within the last few months to truly sheer the idea. Effectively, it will work by creating small, local-area private networks, where communication and sharing is completely anonymous. Described almost as “a dark web”, it is like another layer to the Internet, a lower and very private layer.

Also within the name D-Central, comes a deeper meaning. By decentralizing networks you are essentially using floating and moving local networks within a range of about three blocks. This does in fact mean that your network will constantly be changing, but that is how every uplink and downlink become anonymized. Further, everyone within that scope can communicate with one another but once users move in an out of the local areas the communication obviously changes. It almost feels like you become a sneaky, anonymous person. That, in fact, is because you are and have every right to your own privacy. Allegedly, the device never asks who you are, what you are doing or where you are doing it. Could anything sound more natural?

Another perk to the idea, well at least in McAfee's eyes, involves the discussion of college students. As stated during the convention, “I cannot imagine any college student not standing in line to buy one of these”. Why, you ask? In lieu of claiming our lost privacy, the ability to restore access to all the free movies and music kids want will now be manageable. Even more extreme is his intention to continue selling D-Central even if it becomes banned in the United States. If that were to occur he says he will simply sell it in “England, Japan, the Third World”. McAfee's intent is to finish the first prototype in the next six months which should be compatible with iPhone and Android. A clock is ticking (literally) on his D-Central website, and until 174 days has passed, no hands on the polished merchandise. Luckily, evidence of the audience's enthusiasm from Saturdays presentation shows interest in McAfee's plan. Bold as it sounds, perhaps it is ideas like this that will direct us towards the privacy we deserve.