We gotta plan, stan

I want to tell you its a pretty damn cold day here in Johannesburg. For the tropics, its cold that is.

Anyway, they say one should watch out for the mistakes as that is where the lessons are. I've just put up the admin controls for the RSS feed into the "private" part of media.co.zw and I'm going to leave them there. This means that each member will have full capability of adding their own choice of RSS feed into the soup we all can watch go by. If we have 24*7 connectivity.

There's a drop and drag way to add a RSS feed while you're browsing, so it's as easy as having one of those other multinational conglomirate search engines plug-ins.

Anyway, check it out. The rss feed for the site at the moment is http://media.co.zw/mail/feedonfeeds-0.1.9/opml.php

Gosh, that info means that someone could hack into the system, so I'd better tie down the security aspects. Ha, what do I know about security. Anyway, I'll setup a rudimentary cookie system and check out the path security. Hmmm.

OK while there's a hiatus and most bits of the site seem to do kinda what they should, in the spirit of glasnost, here's the deal.

I applied for and was given the domain media.co.zw heaven knows how many years ago. That's a story on its own. Trust me, I own it (said the used computer salesman.)

Onto biz: Recent reports seem to indicate that overt wiretapping, email scanning and general invasions of our "life as an electron" is spreading into Zimbabwe.

This seems to be a breech of trust as a user.

But the Zimbabwean Government is
a) a user
b) a central infrastucture providor,
c) regulator
d) and, can you believe it, as the controller of the ICAN appointed dns .zw - this through the major telcoms player and parastal.

So now here's the rub. If the Zimbawean Government is seen to "break" the internet, then users can ask for the dns responsibility to be moved. Controlling the dns is both as important as it sounds. And as obscure. We'll get back to that in a while.

The Zimbawean Government undertook the responsibility, on behalf of the PTC, under Internet RFC guidelines. I and at least five people I know were there the day that Chen Chimutengwende agreed to accept the principles.

Its the way the Minister works
"During the June election campaign, all Zimbabwean media, both state-owned and independent, came under intense pressure to cover the ZANU-PF regime in a positive way. Information Minister Chen Chimutengwende called a meeting of state media editors and staffers and informed them that they had a duty to support the government's views. At the same time, the government accused international journalists of colluding with the opposition Movement for Democratic Change and white farmers to discredit the ZANU-PF regime."
http://www.cpj.org/attacks00/africa00/Zimbabwe.html

It was agreed at a meeting with the Minister that transfer would be made to the PTC of the dns responsibility if the Minister agreed on behalf of the government to accept the rules of the net community, the RFCs.

This agreement was made, it was accepted by the Minister that all dns business was public domain and a group was assembled to hand over the dns from the US based authority.

So the question on the home page simply begs the question. Do we want the Government to continue to control the dns. Anywhere in the world, that answer should be no, but hey, its Zimbabwe and lets see if there is something we can do about it.

Onto the back pages of the site. Once you've voted, register after you've read the privacy statement. It will change but two principles generally apply. You own your data and your identity.

I do believe in the hacker ethic, but honestly the rule that the value of security is a function of money spent by the oppostion makes any attempt to hide info here ludicrous.

That anyone with the time, will, infrastructure, money and equipment could build a beta, nation-wide, sniffer system is an interesting concept, don't you think? But at least Google works on the basis that they do no evil.

First tool that is open is the RSS feed. Vote if you haven't yet, register (or hey maybe even login, ) enter your favourite Zimbawean related feed and make it all happen. http://media.co.zw/mail/feedonfeeds-0.1.9/opml.php

A word more on the use of the system. Its going to be really easy to drop BS into this system, But these days, its just as easy to remove the spam. That can be done at the server, in this group or on the client.

To the despoilers of tranquile places, I would say, go carefully forth and be careful of what yea sew.

Essentially what happens is that you end up being shut into a giant echoing cavern. You know that the whole of the internet is there, but you can't talk to it, interact with it or change it. That's because those who build closed systems are so closed in themselves. Kinda like life in Zimbabwe.
Sorry bad joke.

Anyway, what I'm saying is that if users treat this system with respect, I'll do my best to keep the system flowing. Having learnt from my years, I'm hoping its a pretty self automated system. If I got ran over by a bus, it might keep going for a while.

It would be excellent if it turned into a place where the best information available about Zimbabwe was filtered into a meaningful discussion. What better use for the media :-)

cya
tm