Nota Bene

You might think that we were lucky – in the right place at the right time – to have started out well as an enterprise and later becoming the world’s leading cybersecurity vendor. You’d be wrong! Now let me tell you a story…

Actually, back in the day, right at the beginning of our antivirus work, I we set myself ourselves a goal. An incredibly ambitious goal.

I remember it well. My long-time friend, Alexey De Mont De Rique, and I were at the tram stop waiting for the number six tram not far from Sokol metro station in Moscow some time in 1992 – back when we’d work 12-14 hours a day (‘Daddy’s working!’ my kids called me). I suggested to Alexey that ‘we need to set ourselves a goal’. His reply came something like: ‘Ok. What goal precisely, do you really think we need to set one, and how persistent should we be in attaining it?’ Something like that, anyway. My response: ‘Our goal should be to make the best antivirus in the world!’ Alexey chuckled. But he didn’t dismiss it. Instead, we simply set out on our journey toward reaching the goal – working hard harder, and always with our goal at the back of our minds. And it worked!…

How, exactly?

With the mentioned harder work, with inventiveness, and with somehow managing to survive and prosper through those very tough times in Russia [early 90s Russia: the collapse of the Soviet Union and its command economy, the struggles to switch ‘instantly’ to a market economy, inflation, joblessness, lawlessness…]. We toiled away non-stop. I detected new viruses; Alexey coded the user interface; and the antivirus database editor, Vadim Bogdanov (Assembler Jedi), used the Force to put together the various computer tools for what I was doing. Yes – in the early 90s there were just three of us! Then four, then five, then…

Now, remember how I started this blogpost by telling you our success wasn’t a matter of being in the right place at the right time? Well, there was some luck involved: in 1994 the world’s first ‘Antivirus Olympic Games’ took place – independent testing of security software at the University of Hamburg. Sure, we were lucky that this independent testing took place. But it wasn’t luck that we won!

Oh yes. We got the gold (a trend that has stuck with us to this day – as I’ll detail in this post). So from almost the very get-to, we got the very highest results in Hamburg. But it was catching. We kept on getting golds in other independent tests that were established around that time. Hurray!

Read on…

NB: with this post about the place I visited before the lockdown I want to bring you some positivism, beauty and the reassurance that we will all get a chance to see great different places again. Meanwhile I encourage you not to violate the stay-at-home regime. Instead I hope you’re using this time for catching up on what you never seemed to find the time to do… ‘before’ :).

After we’d checked it from a chopper – it was time for a cable-car ride up the hill that’s a whopper: Table Mountain!

We got up to the top in a funicular car, which has a rotating floor (like in some TV towers) so you get to see all 360 degrees of the view below!

Backgrounder (including its height – 1085 meters above today’s sea level):

Off we go!…

Read on…

NB: with this post about the place I visited before the lockdown I want to bring you some positivism, beauty and the reassurance that we will all get a chance to see great different places again. Meanwhile I encourage you not to violate the stay-at-home regime. Instead I hope you’re using this time for catching up on what you never seemed to find the time to do… ‘before’ :).

As promised in my previous post, herewith, a continuation of my Cape-Town-tourisms text and pics for your visual-curiousness-educational pleasure. Time for a chopper ride. A nice clean shiny bright red one at that…

First off – what we saw earlier, but from up in the sky. The Cape of Good Hope:

Read on…

NB: with this post about the place I visited before the lockdown I want to bring you some positivism, beauty and the reassurance that we will all get a chance to see great different places again. Meanwhile I encourage you not to violate the stay-at-home regime. Instead I hope you’re using this time for catching up on what you never seemed to find the time to do… ‘before’ :).

Once upon a time, long ago – in the spring of 2011, I found myself in the glorious city of Cape Town, the southernmost city of the continent of Africa and the country of South Africa. And it’s an amazing city! The Cape of Good Hope, penguins under palm trees, and the main thing – Table Mountain, which rises up above the city. We took the funicular that goes up it back then, but we were in a real rush with just half-an-hour to spare. This is way too short a time. You need hours to stroll around up top, and then to descend back down on foot (the path is only 700 meters long). This year, we had more time – but still not several hours! Oh well, at least I was here for the second time: I’d been dreaming of returning for a full nine years. So here I was. And I did manage to walk back down!…

I was in Cape Town, of course, not primarily for Table Mountain funicularing and strolling. I was here on business: our annual META-region partner conference (META = Middle East, Turkey and Africa) (though, technically Turkey is a Middle Eastern country!). As per, it was meetings, presentations, Q&As, formal dinners, partner awards, interviews, non-stop ‘cheesing’ for the cameras, and all that. And all that over and done with, also as per – micro-tourism!

Read on…

NB: with this post about the place I visited before the lockdown I want to bring you some positivism, beauty and the reassurance that we will all get a chance to see great different places again. Meanwhile I encourage you not to violate the stay-at-home regime. Instead I hope you’re using this time for catching up on what you never seemed to find the time to do… ‘before’ :).

Madagascar. You probably don’t know all that much about the place, right? (Well, apart from what you’ve learned here in my recent series of posts on the country, that is.) But what’s life like for Madagascans? How do they live? Do they have it good, or bad? How much do they earn? All that. Well, to give you an idea – herewith, a short photo-excursion around a few Madagascan urbanisms. First up – in the city of Andasibe.

Read on…

NB: with this post about the place I visited before the lockdown I want to bring you some positivism, beauty and the reassurance that we will all get a chance to see great different places again. Meanwhile I encourage you not to violate the stay-at-home regime. Instead I hope you’re using this time for catching up on what you never seemed to find the time to do… ‘before’ :).

Woah my gosh! Finally – our January 2020 African holiday-expedition (Namibia, Zambia, Zimbabwe and Madagascar) was coming to and end. Boo!

Our final African port of call – central Madagascar. Hurray! For they say it’s full of lemurs, chameleons, geckos, frogs (and also mosquitoes)…

I’ll start with the lemurs. Delightful little animals. Rather daft too! They react positively to… bananas. And negatively to… their tails being pulled (not that we put this to the test!). They seem totally uninterested in humans – unless they have bananas!

Next – chameleons…

NB: with this post about the place I visited before the lockdown I want to bring you some positivism, beauty and the reassurance that we will all get a chance to see great different places again. Meanwhile I encourage you not to violate the stay-at-home regime. Instead I hope you’re using this time for catching up on what you never seemed to find the time to do… ‘before’ :).

The destination we were heading for along the Badagascan roads was the ‘northern capital’ of Madagascar, Antsiranana. Nothing too much to tell you about this small city, apart from the fact that it’s possible to spend a pleasant day on its outskirts. The main thing is not to forget to lather on the hi-factor.

To the east of the city there’s a peninsula with various interesting sights and scenes on offer (though its very name escapes me), and next to the peninsula is a beautiful bay – Baie Andovobazaha – with a wonderful volcanic installation right in the middle of it ->

A little further, at Anosiravo, hillwalking is offered, but we figured it was just a little too hot for enjoyable strolling…

Read on…

NB: with this post about the place I visited before the lockdown I want to bring you some positivism, beauty and the reassurance that we will all get a chance to see great different places again. Meanwhile I encourage you not to violate the stay-at-home regime. Instead I hope you’re using this time for catching up on what you never seemed to find the time to do… ‘before’ :).

Onward we drove – further along our Madagascan excursion around its ‘best’ nature reserves. And since, not far from the country’s main northern city Antsiranana, we were passing Montagne d’Ambre National Park, which the internet told us was super duper, with amazing views, with lakes and waterfalls, and with many a big baobab too, well, of course we turned off the road and drove toward it. But it turned out that the pictures the internet shows aren’t of the place at all! Admittedly, there was plenty of the usual exotic Madagascan awesomeness, but still, overall – a bit of a let-down…

Read on…

Hi folks!

You’ll know how I normally write here about fun stuff like far-away travel, but today I think I really do need to touch on a business topic. Not doing so would be like… not noticing the huge (green) elephant in the room. And we don’t want any of that…

Here’s what I mean:

The company that coincidentally has the same name as moi is now working almost completely remotely. Not that this affects anything negatively: all processes are functioning fine as usual, we’re still going after – and catching – the cyber-scum, our products all over the globe on home computers and at businesses are providing protection round-the-clock as always, and updates are being sent out as regularly as ever. In other words – it’s business as usual, only… with a difference ).

To be honest, I wasn’t expecting things to go as smoothly as they have. I was pleasantly surprised by the fact that the 4000+ of our K-folks all around the world were able to swiftly and painlessly switch from office-based working to home-based, and carry on with all their job duties without any loss of productivity with increased productivity. So, to all our K’ers – but especially our IT, R&D, and HR folks – major kudos + applause standing ovation!

Of course, there were – and still are – a few difficulties here and there, mostly of a psychological nature: our guys and girls getting used to working remotely. Not everyone has been able to move to this unusual working format easily. Working from home every day (if never/rarely done before) means totally new daily routines and planning that require a certain acclimatization period – especially if at home there are children and/or pets (actually, being at home alone every single day I’m sure also takes some getting used to). Faced with these trickinesses, we’ve been sharing accumulated experiences and lifehacks on how to manage better given the new reality on our blogs. Have a look there: practically every day there are new interesting, useful and unexpected must-read posts.

You may ask how I am getting along with this ‘new’ remote working thing.

Well, actually, it’s nothing new to me. I’ve been working remotely for the last 15 years almost as much as I’ve been in the office, since nearly half of my working year is spent on business trips. What is new to me is certain technical wizardry that makes ‘telecommuting’ a lot more convenient and interesting; for example – video conferencing. I never bothered with it before as there was always the possibility of meeting with customers, partners, journalists, ministers, rock stars, and so on in person. So, at least that’s one positive, for me at least, to come out of this dreadful virus-and-lockdown situation. I’ve now started taking part in the weekly live online broadcasts given by our senior management in which we update all the K-folks about the developing situation and answer their questions. Just last week I took part in two such online broadcasts:

So yes: all in all everything’s ok. The crossover to the new daily reality has been completed. Well done everyone!

Wishing you all the robustest of health, here’s hoping you continue to act wisely given the current extraordinary, unprecedented situation, and to use your time in isolation at home as best you can: time to dust off those projects on the rainy-day shelf and get on with them!…

PS: This post is part of the crypto-quest across my social media accounts. What? Well, this is just a teaser; I won’t say more. Ok, I will say more – but just two words: shamir secret. Come on then – on with the quest!…

NB: with this post about the place I visited before the lockdown I want to bring you some positivism, beauty and the reassurance that we will all get a chance to see great different places again. Meanwhile I encourage you not to violate the stay-at-home regime. Instead I hope you’re using this time for catching up on what you never seemed to find the time to do… ‘before’ :).

After being spoiled driving nearly 3000 kilometers along Namibia’s super-solid highways (super-smooth, super-signposted, super-high-speeds-possible, super road-markings, and so on and so forth), the contrasting road situation in Madagascar was all the more striking. Some ‘highways’ leave a lot to be desired, to put it diplomatically. This, for example, is Route Nationale 6, which connects the north of the country to the south:

Some stretches are decently asphalted, but not many. Often it’s a potholed mess ->

Read on…