A year ago Arjen Kamphuis went missing in northern Norway. Given Arjen’s personal and professional history, various scenarios were all possible to his friends and family. As time went on without news, the question whatever happened morphed into dealing with the ever diminishing probability of his return.

When his belongings were found near and in the water shortly after he went missing, an accident seemed a logical conclusion, but then his phone was activated in the south of Norway. In the past year this has led to various conspiracy theories, who when rebuffed by Arjan’s family and friends, were extended to include them.

Norwegian police have now released a statement they consider his disappearance as a closed case (a machine translation of a Norwegian news article). They now announced that his phone and other belongings such as his laptop, were found and taken by two truck drivers who had been fishing near the spot Arjen went missing. The truck drivers are cleared from any suspicion, and a kajaking accident is the most likely explanation.

I’m sure the CTs will continue on (‘Why were the truck drivers never mentioned before? They were Eastern European, so likely Russian operatives!’). I do hope, even in the absence of absolute certainty, his family and friends can have some peace of mind over what happened.

I’ve know Arjen for a long time, and in our infrequent but regular interactions it was great to get a taste of his brilliant and active mind. Since his disappearance I’ve more actively taken up the topic of information security, paying what I learned from Arjen forward to those around me. There’s never much to learn from random tragedy itself, except what Arjen’s close friend Ancilla wrote late last year, to truly care and be curious about how those around you are doing, and to keep them close, to spend time with them.

As I said earlier, in relation to Elmine and I spending the effort to go to Canada for a few days of conversation and hanging out

The simple act of spending time together talking about life for a while [as Peter described it] is a rather rich and powerful thing to do, which packs the full complexity of being human.

In conversation with Arjen during a roof top lunch 11 years ago. The oldest photo I can find of our conversations.

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