NOTES, COMMENT AND BUZZ FROM EUGENE KASPERSKY – OFFICIAL BLOG
October 22, 2024
Hi folks – from Indonesia, where we’re holding our yearly international cybersecurity conference SAS – the Security Analyst Summit.
Dozens of cybersecurity events take place around the world every year, but ours has its own special format – its own special work-hard-play-hard ethic, and it’s always by the sea in a tropical clime. It attracts leading analysts and researchers of the most complex cyberattacks, and this year we’re in Bali ->
January 21, 2021
And the first place in yesterday’s post – the tropical one with the novel Christmas trees – is (as title of this blogpost has somewhat given away)…
…Maldives!
Did you guess right? Or did you spot the clue in the very last of the tropical snaps – Devarana – a nice spa on one of the islands, which is as Google-able as just about anything.
This paradisical place is made up of 26 atolls, which in turn are made up of more than a thousand islands! Some are inhabited – many are resort islands – but most of them have never been settled upon. There are a zillion pics of the picture-perfect archipelago on the internet, be they having been taken on land, underwater or from the air, but here are some of my own aerial pics too:
January 20, 2021
Welcome back folks!
Ok, 2020-review: done.
Next up, my first 2021 blogpost proper – on how we met the New Year.
And we happened to have met it in an exotic location somewhere far away – hurray! (Who’d have thought it? Actually – me! It’s 2021 already!) The suitcases (more than usual) were all packed, and it was time to get going…
Not that seeing in the New Year in some distant place is new to me: I’ve done it… on the slopes of Kilimanjaro, near the peak of a volcano in Indonesia, next to high-altitude hot springs in Ecuador, and even at the South Pole. But on those and other New Year’s Eves > New Year’s Days, there was always a Christmas tree. If not a real one, at least a plastic – green! – one. This year, the Christmas tree situation was… strange. There were… surrogates: tropical installations doing their best fir-tree impression, but which were decidedly not even green. Strange – yes; but also clearly creatively constructed with care, and suitably festively decorated. Like! ->
February 13, 2017
So what else can I tell you about Say-Cheese-Chelles? I just have to tell you about the cleanliness here…
In a full three days here, which meant a lot of ocean-gawping while strolling along beaches, we didn’t come across one single piece of waste plastic, not one bottle, not one soda can, not one juice carton, and no other inorganic waste whatsoever in the sea. All of it perfectly garbage-free. And as a result – no negative emotions either :-)…
The islands themselves are neat and tidy too. All the roads well tarmacked, all the houses (that we saw) thoroughly kempt. There are tatty shacks too, but they were only visible from up above in a helicopter and somewhere in the middle of the island (we were always by the shore when on the ground). Everything neatly painted, cleaned, trimmed and groomed. And hardly any garbage anywhere; you really have to look for it to find it.
February 10, 2017
The second-largest famous thing of Seychelles is its giant tortoise. Specifically it’s from the Aldabra atoll, one of the Outer Islands of Seychelles, but it’s now featured on many of the other Seychelles islands too. Lovely creatures – and they don’t mind your taking their pics or even touching their shells :-):
February 9, 2017
All righty boys and girls, herewith – back to my customary ongoing narration after a short pause caused by all sorts of events being packed into a short length of time on the road. Ready? Popcorn procured? Beverage beakered? Then we shall continue…
The Indian Ocean: the Indian WhOcean! Its shores include those of many an esteemed continent and its water anoints many a beautiful island. I’ve been on all of the continents – including the lesser-visited southern one – but as to the list of islands I’ve some way to go yet until I can say I’ve been to them all (and checked out their historical/geographic/touristic/beautific highlights, preferably after some useful business activity, as per the usual template).
But as you’ll have noticed long ago, I usually just gloss over the useful business activity and get straight to the fun bit. Well, some things never change, so here you are folks – straight to the chase: a short post on my recent trip to Seychelles!
February 2, 2016
Our journey through Tanzania consisted of three stages:
1. Climbing Kilimanjaro
2. Savanna safari
3. Zanzibar
Those who’ve been following this Tanzanian mini-series will know that I haven’t told you about the last stage yet – Zanzibar. So here it is: tales from the final stage of our January 2016 Africa adventure.
Upon arrival we were straight into it: snapping the super sunset:
https://www.instagram.com/p/BA7DPGQuiV3/
I have to admit that I didn’t quite know where Zanzibar is. Well, I knew it was in the Indian Ocean somewhere, but that’s about it. But what was a real revelation for me was that the Zanzibar archipelago belongs to Tanzania!
July 2, 2015
Time to move from all things on-land to all things just off it – to the more attractive sections of coastline, for we were told the best natural charms of Kimberley lie on or near its shoreline. From Broome (the region’s ‘capital’ if you missed it earlier, also our base) the nearest bit of awesome ocean-ness is up at Buccaneer Archipelago, just under 250km away.
What a place! Countless islands, islets, cliffs, straits, bays, an almost turquoise tropical ocean, and impossible horizons. Wikipedia reckons there are more than 800 islands here. But I don’t get how they can be counted accurately: when the tide is low some tiny islets may emerge; when high – they’ll disappear again…
June 11, 2015
In the southern hemisphere – of course including Australia, where I was last week – June 1 is the first day of winter. Down under it’s hardly gonna be all snow drifts, frozen-over lakes and -40 degrees temperatures or anything, but it can still get relatively cold at night. The nightly average minimum temperature at this time of year in northwestern Australia is 15 degrees centigrade, but that’s only the average; in some places there can be night frosts. In Oz!! All the same, by day, hardly wintry in the town of Broome in Kimberley:
February 25, 2015
Never thought that one day I’d be in the Maldives.
Why? Well, my travels normally take me to places where I really need to get to for business. The Maldives? No meetings, speeches or conferences, and no business tends to be transacted there…
Of course there are times when I go to this or that exotic country as a tourist, but my preferred tourism tends to feature rucksacks, tents and volcanoes – not sun, sand, and surf. So, again… the Maldives? Eh?
But when it was suggested that ‘we have this year’s management board jolly in the Maldives’, well, I didn’t need much convincing as to the wholesomeness of the idea. Everyone surely knows the Maldives is a sun drenched set of paradisiacal islands, so why would I object? So off we headed in the direction of the Indian Ocean…
