Nota Bene

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…

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’ :).

Next Madagascan theme – a rocky one. Particularly – a tsingy one!…

Madagascan tsingy refers to the country’s rather unique rock formations that cover some 1500 square kilometers. And they look like this:

Quite how these unusual forms came about the internet gives various versions of, including one that claims they’re from acid rain caused by a volcanic eruption.

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 a quick fast-forward to the corona crisis, herewith, a quick rewind back to southern Africa, since I haven’t finished telling you all about it yet!…

After taking in Namibia’s dunes and the Victoria Falls (in both Zambia and Zimbabwe) next up for us, as per our long-ago pre-planned route, was… Madagascar! Which, it turned out was to be my 99^th country in the world I’ve visited, after Namibia (98^th). I’ve already told you about my hundredth…

Our first two days in the country, however, were somewhat off-piste – unplanned. For, after several days of ‘tourism till you drop’ (up early, late to bed, and non-stop concentrated travel-cum-tourism in-between), we decided a few days ‘off’ were in order. And so we did order them, and were granted them… on the Madagascan island paradise called Nosy Be, just off the northern shores of the country.

But first we had to get there. By boat. It’s about 30 kilometers across the sea over to the island – to a town called Hell-Ville (actually, it used to be called that (after Anne Chretien Louis de Hell!); it’s now called Andoany).

No problem, surely. Thing is, just as we were setting out across the sea a storm took hold, with thunder and lightening even. So, nervously, we ask of our ‘captain’, if it might be dangerous making the trip right now. His answer: ‘Yes, yes. Is dangerous!’ ‘Then what the actual *#@! were we doing even contemplating it?’ we all thought. He then asked us if we should turn round. Er, but I thought he was the captain, not us. ‘Yes, we turn round’, came the chorus from us lot!

It was just one of those things – where we needed to remember we were in Africa and the… approach to certain situations by locals can be quite different to that of tourists visiting from afar. We simply took a deep breath, made no sudden movements (much like if you encounter a tarantula in your bed in the middle of the night:), and realized things will work out fine in the end. Which they did…

…For next morning it was a clear, calm, sunny day. So we set sail – in the same boat, with the same ‘captain’! – over to Hell-Ville…

Read on…

Goodness me. The only thing being talked about, written about – worried about – of late is… I don’t even have to name it it’s so obvious to everyone except cave-dwellers…

Sure, seasonal viruses are commonplace, but this one sure looks anything but commonplace-or-garden. This ain’t just a kind of flu. But this also ain’t something so pandemically awful as the Spanish flu or the 1968 flu outbreak. I wonder – would today’s medicine have been able to nip those two in the bud early? Well here’s hoping today’s medicine will do so for today’s coronavirus. Btw, curiously, outbreaks like these occur almost exactly every 50 years. Spanish flu – 1918; then there was the 1968 outbreak; now – just over 100 and 50 years later, respectively – corona. Spooky coincidences.

As the world enters panic mode, with quarantines, economic downturns disasters, cruise ship passengers locked-down, frenzied bulk-buying, face-masks, gloves and hazmats… what’s to be done? Get to work, I say. But extremely responsibly: social distancing, working remotely if possible, checking your health regularly, and reporting to the doctors if you suspect anything wrong. Exactly what I’m doing at the moment. But before things got really bad I had a very long business trip. Thus, as per, it was: suitcase > airport > takeoff > …Berlin!

Read on…

As you’ll know perfectly well, I love to travel. Far. More often than not I travel for work, but two or three times a year it’s for R&R and tourism. Anyway, toward the end of any year, normally I’ve totted up more than a hundred flights throughout the year or, if not, am not far off. I long ago became accustomed to living like… a rock star on a world stadium tour (the traveling bits, not the rock ‘n’ rolling excess:), or… George Clooney in that film where all he seems to do is live onboard planes up in the air. For me, ‘on tour’ is all about conferences, exhibitions, business meetings, new acquaintances, exchanging ideas, discussions – and all in different towns and cities and countries across the world. In-between there are of course the airports with their inevitable passport controls, security checks, lines, all of which I fairly hate (and you don’t get fast-track lanes everywhere on the planet). Once on the plane I don’t mind it at all: an ideal time for catching up on reading or viewing or emailing. But I digress…

Now, normally come almost-April, I have at least 25 flights under my belt so far in any particular year. But this year, I’ve a mere 17. Which is rather surprising given that I’d gotten in a full nine flights just in January on just one vacation – our Africa-2020 jaunt. So I wanted to get to the bottom of this – why the slow start? After all, this nasty coronavirus can’t have been the reason – its impinging on everyone’s travel plans has only just fully kicked in…

It turns out that, actually, I have been becoming less and less active during the early months of a year. Here’s how…

First: I’ve stopped going to Davos. I used to go every year (since 2012), but no more. Why? Well, it used to be the World Economic Forum. Then, somewhere around 2016–2018, it turned into the World Geopolitical Forum. In a word: cancel. Shame though. It was a rather useful get-together (maybe I should reconsider? I just don’t know).

Second: I’ve stopped going to the yearly winter Munich Security Conference. Sure, it’s a very cool, elite event. But besides useful meetings and acquaintances… there’s a rotten feeling one gets while there. Alas, like with Davos, the inroads politics has made are just too much to bear. Nah. Nyet, spasibo. Not off there again.

Read on…

I couldn’t write about Zimbabwe without a post on the country’s legendary currency now could I?

It goes like this: An economic crisis and consequent mega-hyperinflation kicked in the early 2000s. It seems Zimbabwe is a world champion of price increases, with prices doubling at one point every hour-and-a-half (according to Wikipedia)!

The reasons for the crisis are often put under the overarching title ‘land reforms’: confiscations of land and farms from white farmers in favor of the black population, then hounding farmers out of the country (any who didn’t agree were murdered), then practically the whole white population leaving the country. These transformations, and the country and its economy being run by ineffective folks led to the mega-economic crisis. This saw the country go from one of Africa’s richest countries to one of its poorest – fast. Incredible really. And all topped off with the hyperinflation.

Now, remember the photo I showed you in a recent Victoria Falls post together with the question ‘how much cash is here?’? This one ->

Well, it’s a lot. No – practically zillions…

The largest denomination in those there notes is for… wait.. ten TRILLION dollars! That’s just one note, remember. Imagine a wad of them? Or a pile – like this one ). And notes like these are sold on every corner to tourists for next to nothing today!

Look at the prices on a menu from 2008:

When things got just too silly – zillion-zillions become a reality – they switched to the US dollar. Then they added the South African rand. Then there were plans to bring back the national currency, but that hasn’t worked out yet – it’d only go hyper-inflational once more…

And that was that Zimbabwe-wise for us. It was time to fly over to… Madagascar! All about which I’ll tell you in an upcoming post.

More pics from Zimbabwe are here.

I’d been to Victoria Falls before – in May of 2008. Back then it was high water season, and much of the time practically nothing was visible – all shut off by a white shroud of spray. I decided then I wanted to return when the water was low. And 12 years later – here I was again: during low water season. Time for some photographic comparisons. And the differences, as you will see were sometimes like night and day. Check them out!…

Read on…

Fighting injustice. It’s just what we do – and keep doing. And that includes fighting major, large-scale injustice…

For example, in 2017, we managed to reach an agreement with Microsoft that encouraged it to stop giving unfair advantages to its own antivirus product. Sure, Microsoft is a modern-day Goliath. But we’re a modern-day David! And we need to be. For someone has to stand up to the giants now and again when they start throwing their weight around unfairly. Not doing so would mean users wind up with less choice.

Then last year saw us having to don the boxing gloves again for another dispute – again on an antitrust issue, but this time with another Goliath: Apple. Fast forward nearly a year – and I have two bits of news for you on this…

But first – quick rewind: some background.

Early on – halcyon daze…

Back in 2008, on the back of its extraordinary successes with its iPhones, Apple opened its App Store. And to fill out its ‘shelves’, it invited independent developers to use it as a platform to sell their for-iOS software. Those independent developers jumped right in, bringing with them thousands of apps (fast-forward 12 years and there are now literally millions). Users all over the planet were happy with all that choice, both Apple and the independent developers made tidy profits, all was well, there was peace and harmony, and it looked like everyone would live happily ever after.

But… business is business. At the end of the day Apple exists – like all commercial companies – to make a profit first and foremost. So it started branching out a bit. It created other iThings, all sorts of services, and a lot more besides. Yet still Apple yearned for more. Which was when it turned its gaze toward the markets of iOS applications made by independent developers in its own App Store.

Fast-forward to 2020.

I have a lot of respect for Apple. The company created a successful business model that’s much envied and much imitated. I neither envy nor imitate it, and I don’t agree fully with much of its policy (first and foremost – regarding cybersecurity), but that doesn’t mean I respect it any less (even though I personally don’t use any Apple products). We’ve been cooperating with Apple many years, in various areas, and until recently this was a partnership of equals.

Like tens of thousands of other independent developers, we create useful iOS apps – apps that increase the overall attractiveness of the platform. Together with Apple we had some profitable mobile business going on, but it was the users who benefitted most (as they were supplied with ever-more useful apps). Everyone had it good. Then, at the end of 2018, Apple announced its crusade against independent developers with the release of its Screen Time.

Competition is good, because competition works for the good of the user. In this case, more apps, better apps, more varied apps – more choice (and a developer not falling asleep at the top of the App Store listings)! But for competition to exist there needs to be a level playing field, i.e., fair rules. For everyone. Yet that level playing field – and competition with it – has been destroyed by Apple. Let me tell you how.

iStory that’s hard to believe.

Screen Time entered a mature market in which dozens of independent developers already operated. The App Store offered a great many apps providing parental controls, time management and other related tasks. And it’s here where the craziness begins.

Apple unexpectedly monopolized a wide range of critical functions, by simply turning them off for other developers!

So, like, how, for example, is a parental control app supposed to get by without configurable profiles, the ability to filter URL addresses, application control, and full fledged geolocation? That’s right: it can’t! But it can if it’s an Apple parental control app – for none of this critical functionality was limited in any of its own apps! It’s one rule for Apple’s apps, another for all the rest.

Now, of course, this audaciously odd-ball move was made under a smokescreen of ‘concerns’ about security and privacy; however (also ‘of course’) – these concerns were seen right through real quick to reveal their bogusness.

Next, Apple started banning developers from the App Store, delaying approval of new software builds, and rolling out new unacceptable requirements and conditions. Some apps were shut down, while others had their functionality restricted – rendering them useless. But some independent developers decided to fight back. Including us. Developers came together to form an association with the aim of working with Apple to try and secure fair rules for all, while some filed complaints with regional antitrust authorities and began a public campaign in the press and on social media.

Then, in June 2019, Apple looked like it had hit the brakes and even gone into reverse. However, actually, it was purely a tactical maneuver to feign an expression of goodwill, and which in no way helped solve the problem of equal rights for all – including Apple itself.

Then it released iOS 13… – with yet further restrictions to hit the ecosystem even harder!

Let me give you an example of how the ‘innovations’ of iOS reflected on our parental control app Kaspersky Safe Kids.

First, Apple loads and activates Screen Time automatically on devices upon installation of the new version of the iOS – even if the user already has onboard a similar application. Don’t know about you, folks, but that, to me, doesn’t have much of a ring of ‘free competition’ to it. Looks more like just the opposite: with a ring of intrusion, aka thrusting, aka foisting, aka gatecrashing the party, i.e. – uninvited.

Second, new features on iOS 13 now permit a child to easily delete Safe Kids (i.e., a complete cancelling out of the very meaning of ‘parental control’), and also view websites via Safari (it has become impossible to hide it) instead of via the built-in safe browser that permits filtration of undesirable content. No, really folks!

Third, changes to the policy of accessing the geolocation of a device have taken away parents’ ability to track their child’s location! (No. I am not making this up. And all in the name of security – remember?!)

But wait – here’s what really takes the proverbial biscuit. Are you sitting down?…

All features that have become forbidden to independent developers remain completely ok and wholesome and accessible to… – ta-daa – Apple!

iAudaciousness on this scale simply couldn’t go unnoticed.

Encouragingly, the issue hasn’t gone unnoticed. It’s been resonating at the very highest legislative levels around the world. In the U.S. Senate it was suggested to forbid Apple and other large companies from placing their own apps in their own marketplaces, since they, by default, will create preferences for their own products.

In Russia antitrust proceedings have been initiated. In the EU they’re still at the pre-investigation phase. Indeed, slowly but surely the negative consequences of this lowering of competition are coming to the surface. Even from the user side – Screen Time is taking a lot of flak for its functionality shortcomings (even with its functional superiority given that its competitors have all had their functionality curtailed!). Some independent developers see the only way of getting round the issue to be to urge users to move over to Android if they want to keep their kids safe.

And now for that news I said I’d be telling you…

I’m not sure yet if it’s good news or not, but at least some movement must be a good thing – and we’ve been trying to fight for equal opportunities for everyone. This spring, the Federal Antimonopoly Service of Russia will deliver its verdict on our claim regarding the abuse by Apple of its dominant position and the creation of unlawful competitive advantages for Screen Time. Almost all arguments and evidence in the proceedings have already been given and submitted. For us it’s been a very long, complex process (details – here), which has taken up much time, effort and money energy. But we’ve explained our position well, and I have Hope that the decision will be in our favor. Fingers crossed…

When Jobs was in charge – there was nothing like this.

Do you know what this crusade of Apple’s against independent developers gets me thinking about? A fight of the iOS ecosystem against the App Store ecosystem! The former gradually absorbs the juiciest, most profitable markets of the latter. And it looks all the more unsavory given that it is thanks to the App Store that the iOS platform has risen to now make up the basis of the business of the company. Without it, Apple would have had just another failed project – the kind of which there have been many in the history of the IT business.

It all reminds me a little of the infamous letter of Steve Jobs that announced the ‘holy war‘ against Google; in particular one sentence within it: ‘Tie all our products together, so we further lock customers into our ecosystem’.

Probably only Mr. Jobs himself knows exactly what he meant by that. But though he was originally against third-party apps for the iPhone (he later changed his mind), I’ve no doubt whatsoever that among his greatest expectations were those he vested in independent developers: to have their inspiration and resources help create for Apple the best ecosystem. And one thing’s for sure, Jobs wouldn’t have allowed Apple to transform itself into a self-important dictator and turn on the very developers that helped it and subject them to out-and-out discrimination.

I’ve already said this above, but I’ll say it again: I respect Apple. And I have a feeling that there are no issues in our relations we can’t resolve. Apple could opt for a sensible compromise and reconsider the unfair rules of the game. This would make its platform even stronger by permitting independent developers to supply to it full-fledged apps so as to serve the needs of its millions of users optimally.

Finally, please support us in this struggle to secure your right to choose exactly what you want, not what one large corporation decides is best for you. And stay tuned. I’ll be back with news re the FAS’s verdict once it arrives…