My perspective on firearm ownership

One of the things I have learned in my exploration into politics is that what you say can easily be misrepresented.

I experienced this recently. I was having an informed and polite debate with a friend of mine on Facebook. The debate mostly focused around the issue of whether firearm regulation improves safety.

I learnt through a reliable source that some people had apparently pointed out my conversation as some type of anti-gun stance.

Let me set the record straight here and now. I am not anti-gun or firearm. I grew up around firearms. We had them on the farm. I was hunting before most boys had fired a BB gun. 

When I entered high school, I joined the shooting team. For my whole high school career I spent 3 days a week practising. I would shoot between 50-100 rounds every practice with .22 German-made Auntluch rifle. I once shot 398(400) in a bisley. 

I also understand the important role hunting plays in nature conservation, and how game farm permits have lead to a massive increase in game population levels (*1). 

I have no problem with responsible people who wish to purchase firearms for defence, for hunting or other recreational uses.

What I do believe in is smart firearm regulation -- that only people who can show that they can responsibly own a firearm and have a valid reason for a firearm can purchase one.

My view is hardly extreme. It is very moderate. Most of the safest countries in the world have deployed successful firearm regulation which has lowered the rate of firearm deaths (*2).

Just because I like firearms does not mean I ignore the cold hard reality about them. Telling me "guns don't kill people; people kill people" is like telling me cigarettes don't cause cancer. A gun kills. That is why I use one to hunt with.

Studies found that people who carry guns were 4.5 times as likely to be shot and 4.2 times as likely to get killed compared with unarmed citizens (*3). Societies with poor gun regulation are more likely to have more gun-related deaths. 

Since I am aware of the dangers and risks associated with firearms, I really think it is important that we have smart regulation that allows responsible gun owners to own firearms and that improves the public's safety. 

Improved firearm regulation in Australia saw an end to all mass shootings. According to President Howard (former conservative President of Australia) firearm homicides dropped by 69% over the next decade and firearm suicides dropped by 65% (without a parallel increase in non-firearm homicides and suicide rates). (*4)

I understand the need for a hunter to own a hunting rifle, but I don't think selling AR15 assault rifles in our Spars would be a good idea -- a view shared by 85% of American gun owners.(*5) 

South Africa has some very responsible gun ownership laws, but I always believe that there is room to improve our policies and systems so they are more effective and more efficient. 

I am not anti-gun. I am pro responsible firearm ownership. 

Resources:

1: 
http://www.dailymaverick.co.za/opinionista/2013-11-19-in-defence-of-a-lion-killer/

2:

http://www.livescience.com/27740-gun-laws-deaths-study.html

3: http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17922-carrying-a-gun-increases-risk-of-getting-shot-and-killed.html

4:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2012/08/02/did-gun-control-work-in-australia/

5: http://www.pewresearch.org/daily-number/most-gun-owners-favor-background-checks-for-private-gun-sales/

Azure Cloud Woes

I would have loved this to have been a review about Azure Cloud, but it appears Microsoft does not want me as a client. Earlier today I decided to sign up for their free trial to test their cloud based VPS`s. As I am sure you know, the Cloud VPS is a highly saturated, highly competitive market, so I expected something great from Microsoft.

My first impressions? Well my first impressions is I cant even sign up for their service. I went through the intrusive process of giving Microsoft my phone and them verifying it, but when it came to the payment, it would not accept my credit card. This is the same credit card they have on record, which I have used in the past to purchase Windows 8 and Office 360. They even have my credit card under payment options when I view payment option in my account.

At first I thought this was a bug so I tried again. Again they didn't like my payment option. They asked me to contact support. Oh well, I figure if I can just email or submit a support ticket I am sure I can get this resolved.

So I click on get on "Get Support" only to be told that I don't have an active subscription (duh) and I must click on yet another link to get support. So I do this again. Now this time I am greeted with a page of country names and the generic Microsoft support number for my country. They now want me, to spend money and for me to phone them to fix their screw up.

At this point I couldn't be bothered. As mentioned earlier on the VPS market is a highly competitive market. I don't need to jump through 10 hoops with other suppliers, why would I bother with Microsoft.

So sorry Microsoft. You are your own worst enemy. You lost another potential client. 

The father of our democracy. R.I.P tata

I think one of the greatest lessons we can learn from Madiba was the lesson of forgiveness and reconciliation.

Towards the end of Apartheid, the Apartheid regime was able to keep white people polarized with their strong “swaart gevaar” (black danger) propaganda campaigns.

The Apartheid regime told us that if the black man got the ability to vote, that there would be waves of revenge killings and genocide. It was strongly drummed into all white people that if the black man was free, we would be driven into the ocean until it ran red with our blood. We were often told in gory detail about what happened to the white people in Kenya during the Mau-Mau. 

When Apartheid ended, many white people were fearful…. but then Mandela happened. He took everything that we believed and turned it upside down. He showed us what a great statesman he was. He showed us gentleness, reconciliation and forgiveness. He showed us everything that the Apartheid government told us he was not. 

Instead of violence, he showed us gentleness, instead of revenge he showed us forgiveness and instead of death he showed us reconciliation. 

No country is luckier than South Africa to have had such a gentle and kind leader. Mandela is truly the father of our proud democratic nation.

I think we have all learned from tata Mandela. In some way he has impacted all of our lives. We have to take the gift of democracy he has given us and grow it. We have to create a South Africa that we know he would be truly proud of.

The father of our nation has closed his eyes so that the rest of the world may open theirs. 

“No one is born hating another person because of the color of their skin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.”, Nelson Mandela

We love you Mandela. Asoze sikulibale. Nkosi sikelele' iAfrika

"I have fought against white domination, and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons will live together in harmony with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for, and to see realised. But my Lord, if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.", Nelson Mandela

How hating hunters could decimate the lion population

Please note, I do not advocate or support lion hunting in any form. I just think people need to think about this beyond  knee-jerk outrage. 

There seems to be a strong anti-hunting outrage coming from people after Melissa Bachman was photographed posing for a picture with a lion she had shot.

This post is not going to deal with the shaky morality of the protesters (for instance, why is a protester upset about a lion getting shot and not a Kudu? And if you have problems with an animal getting shot are you Vegan?). This post is going to concentrate on how those same protesters could push the lion population from "vulnerable" to "endangered".

Its simple. Many game and hunting farms breed lions. They actually breed quickly and populations of lions have to be managed. So no matter what, if you breed lions you are going to have to have some type of population control. Which normally involves a process called culling.

Most game and hunting farms breed lions for the value they bring the farm. Not only to visitors who want to see them alive, but also to the hunters that want to shoot them. A massive portion of the worlds lion populations are held on these game and hunting farms.

Lions are not cheap animals to keep. They need a lot of meat! When I worked on a game farm I used to have to give our 5 lions a cow every week to survive on. Now imagine you have a farm of 50 lions, and each cow costs R3000. That is R30 000 in cow every week you need to feed those lions.

Now if a game farm cant sell of their excess lions to be hunted, theyre certainly not going to keep many of them. In fact, since theyre really expensive to feed you will find most farmers would have to get rid of most of their lions to create a sustainable system.

This means that stopping the hunting of lions would probably result in them moving from, "vulnerable" to "endangered" in several short years. So technically, those protesting against the hunting are actually pushing the animal closer to extinction.

Funny Guy Fawkes Facebook Status

A friend of mine recently trolled Facebook with his opinion on how Guy Fawkes should be celebrated.

However, his troll post was not as funny as his next status update:

A warning to people who want to host a VPS at Afrihost

I've hosted VPS`s with many companies. VPS.co.za, Afrihost, DigitalOcean, Rackspace, Linode and even Virpus. Well actually there are too many companies to list but my point is that I have a decent amount of VPS experience.

Last year I signed a client up for a VPS at Afrihost. The market is very competitive but I thought I would give them a chance. By and large they have a decent enough reputation as a hosting company.

All went well until this month. Afrihost has out of bundle overage charges. Meaning that if you use up too much bandwidth they will charge you X amount per GB of over used bandwidth. My clients VPS came with a small bandwidth allocation of 100GB. (I best my international readers are wondering why there is such an insanely low cap)

Needless to say, everything was pretty much okay. There was the odd strange event like Afrihost shutting down my VPS for no reason and a couple of other issues but we got through them all. My client hardly ever went over their bandwidth. In the entire time I was there we got sent notifications about usage 3 times.

Things changed and one of the things that changed at Afrihost was in the month of October they did not send me any bandwidth notifications. Not a single one to warm me that I had over used. Instead what I got at the end of October was a bill for over R3000 (over $300!)... for excessive bandwidth usage.

Apparently the VPS has used in excess of 400GB and for that 400GB Afrihost charged me over R3000. Wow, was I blown away. Such a large amount deducted with absolutely no warnings! Yup, the month that Afrihost didnt send out a notification was the month that this VPS went into massive overages with them. What an amazingly convenient financial coincidence for them.

So my warning to anyone who uses an Afrihost VPS. Just remember that you or one of your clients can be hosting a Wordpress or Joomla website. It can easily be hacked.... and you are then responsible for a massive out of bundle bill. Those of us in the hosting industry know that hosted websites (especially out dated ones) are hacked a dime a dozen.

Its not just Vodacom and MTN that hit you with the OOB shark. Hosting companies are just as happy to take your money.

So a warning to all potential clients. Afrihost do not give you the option to hard cap your VPS, neither are they reliable in their notifications warning you of excessive usage. Understand that using them does add a certain amount of liability and risk to your company.

Needless to say we have cancelled all our services with them. It is not a risk we are willing to take.

Attack of the Wikileaks clones

This is an interesting story I thought I would share with people. You often hear Julian Assange carry on about how he is the victim of a smear campaign and how unnamed institutions are using dirty tricks tactics against him. Well from where I am sitting, those who live in glass houses, should not thrown stones.

Back in January when I did my short stint as the Wikileaks-Forum owner, there was a misleading attack by one of Julian Assange supporters on the Wikileaks-Forum. Which Julian himself retweeted (so it had his support) . For those of you that dont remember the incident here is the link to the original story:  http://www.karmicsangoma.co.za/2013/01/does-wikileaks-forumcom-spam-spyware.html

In a nutshell, a user by the name of "Stjärna Frånfälle" accused the Wikileaks-forum of having malware. This was then retreated by Julian Assange. Since I am a skilled InfoSec specialist I investigated this claim right away. We could empirically prove that Stjärna Frånfälle was intentionally misleading people. I even remember when I asked "her" to back up the story, we got sent a dodgy fake screenshot.

I think that was one of those moments in my life when I realized I was dealing with some really disturbed human beings. Anyways, water under the bridge and all that, and I moved on with my life. 10 months later I decided to search, "wikileaks-forum" on Twitter and low and behold who do I find?

A Twitter user account by the name of @marthagroup slandering the Wikileaks-Forum. Now this by itself would not be interesting to me. I know there are several factions that are jealous of the accomplishments of the forum that are trying to do their best to attack the forum, however, what interested me was the user, "@marthagroup" was using the exact same profile picture as the fraudulent "Stjärna Frånfälle" account.

I went back to check the "@StjarnaFranfall" account to see what that clone was doing these days only to find out the user behind the clone account had decided to shut it down. Probably because of my last post on that user which outed them for being a fraud. 

Well it seems that user is back again. Once again slandering the Wikileaks-forum, this time under a completely different name. Also from what I have seen, there is a focus group of clones attacking the forum. Though theyre not alone. There is a small group of disturbed people (Im pretty sure theyre either bipolar or paranoid schizophrenics) who are constantly attacking the forum and stalking its members. 

All of this has kinda left a bad taste in my mouth. Gone are the days when I was an idealist, thinking that Wikileaks was run by noble people for a noble cause with noble intentions. This has been replaced by the cold dark reality of subterfuge, back stabbing, dishonesty and deception.

So next time you see Julian and Wikileaks claim they are the victims of a dirty tricks campaign. Just remember, that its pretty unlikely that that is a one way street. Be careful whom you trust. 

PS. I am not the owner or involved directly in running Wikileaks-forum any more. I do however speak to members on both side of the divide and am friendly with people from the forum and some who ardently support Wikileaks. PPS. I am also not the least bit unsure that writing this article is going to light up my twitter feed like a Christmas tree with personal attacks. 

How to create a secure and anonymous chat system

So I have spent the last week trying out many different types of chat applications and services to find out what best suites my needs. This became more important to me ever since the FBI`s crackdown on Freedom Hosting totally destroyed Tormail (RIP).

For those of you that are unfamiliar with Tormail, Tormail was a completely anonymous email system which activists, whisteblowers and other people paranoid about their identity could use to send and receive emails. Ever since Tormail was taking offline, there has definitely been a gap in the market.

I communicate with many pro-democracy activists around the world. Some of these activists reside in countries where pro-democracy activities are monitored or are illegal. So it was imperative that I find a chat system that was both secure and protected my activists and their anonymity.

I tried platforms like Bitmessage and TorChat. While both of these systems were very efficient at sending encrypted anonymous messages they were more designed for limited or single use operations. They were not particularity designed for constant communication across multiple platforms. I found them useful but unpractical for my needs.

Eventually after sorting through many applications and protocols I finally found a system that was practical and that had very high levels of encryption and security. The solution involves combining Jabber (XMPP) and Tor.

What you will need:

Pidgin (An open source jabber/XMPP client)
Tor Browser (Allows us to connect to the Tor network for anonimity and encryption)
OTR Plugin (Allows us to add an aditional layer of end-to-end encryption)
Rows.io Jabber Account (Encrypted / decentralized Jabber registration service)

Install Tor Browser, Pidgin and OTR in that order. Before you create your account configure Pidgin to use the Tor encrypted network. Tools ---> Preferences ---> Proxy:

One you are sure Pidgin is using the Tor network you can go ahead and create your username@rows.io jabber account. Since you will be using Jabber via Tor, your real IP address and other incriminating information is hidden from possible observers. 

As an added measure of security I use the OTR (Off the Record) Pidgin plugin, This applies an additional layer of end-to-end encryption so that no one can snoop on your private communications. 

Thats pretty much it. Just be sure to have the Tor Browser open the whole time (or alternately configure Tor to be a permanent service) and you will be fine. 

Not even PRISM or your local corrupt government spy agency will have the ability to intercept and view your communications. 

Want to chat and test your system? Add me: elitezebra@rows.io

Tie me kangaroo down sport

Just a short message out to all the Australian supporters of Wikileaks. It was brought to my attention that Julian Assange has attacked yet another part of his support base... The strong supporters he had in Australia.

Just like Julian attacked the Wikileaks-forum he has now gone after another Wikileaks support group called akaWaka.

The cries of dismay from his now ex-supporters were plain to see.

@wikileaks You are kidding aren't you?
— perthtones (@perthtones) October 9, 2013

@wikileaks A front group? For what? Mate, they are independent citizen supporters. You can't disendorse citizens. Do you endorse your mum?
— WikiLeaksLover (@NOH8ER) October 9, 2013

@wikileaks you are really cutting your own throat here. Don't do it.
— Apparatchik Tads (@Tadlette) October 9, 2013

@wikileaks If this is the way u *truly* feel about ur support base here In oz Julian - we can stop. Is that what u want? Good luck w/out us.
— JAY K (@Jamus__) October 9, 2013

@wikileaks supporting you mother makes us a front group... nice Julian really nice
— WACA (@akaWACA) October 9, 2013

@wikileaks Wait what, they've been campaigning for you to come home, man, what are you doing? Dude don't do that, don't!
— ᎵᏋᎢᏐᎢᏋ ᎵᏫᏐᏁᎢᏋᎡ (@assangistan) October 9, 2013

@wikileaks Really dude, stop giving up on yourself! We're fighting for you! I'm busting my ass for you! @akaWACA is doing the same!
— ᎵᏋᎢᏐᎢᏋ ᎵᏫᏐᏁᎢᏋᎡ (@assangistan) October 9, 2013

@wikileaks if I were you mate id be taking back what you just said and apologizing to your supporters in Australia. Before it's too late…
— JAY K (@Jamus__) October 9, 2013

To the Wikileaks supports in Australia, from an Wikileaks supporter in South Africa. I can sympathize with you. If there is one thing that Julian has consistently done to his volunteers and supporters. Is use them, cut them off and then pretend like they never existed. A common practice is to pretend they are part of some front for whatever group he currently has issues with.  I wrote about what had happened to me and the Wikileaks-Forum last year already and a lot of it is still very relevant today: http://www.karmicsangoma.co.za/2012/10/the-day-wikileaks-died-for-me-and-most.html

It seems a year later nothing has changed. Julian is still attacking his support base. I feel sorry for the Wikileaks supporters in Australia. I know how it feels to be thrown under the bus like this. I just would like the Australian support base to consider the following. Dont ever give up on the ideal. The ideal is greater than one person or one organization. The ideals of transparency and accountability should never be lost. Dont let one man / one personality destroy your ambitions to achieve those ideals.

I know you are hard working guys and girls and I am pretty sure I saw a fellow Tabler (Round Table) in those tweets of dismay. Take this experience and learn from it. Build something greater than Julian could ever imagine. 

My views on libertarianism

There was a stage in my life I identified with being a libertarian. I loved the ideal. It was utopian. A world with little or no government where we were governed by ourselves and not by a government. I grew up in the 80`s, where governments around the worlds were committing terrible human right abuses against their peoples.

We had the communists and socialist governments wrecking havoc with bad centralized planning. We had the capitalist governments profiteering off the industrial war complex. We had Apartheid government in South Africa oppressing the majority of its citizens and we had the Chinese driving tanks over citizens in Tienanmen Square.

It was very easy to spin an anti-government argument then. Most governments were working against the will of the people.

Believe it or not, in the last couple of decades a lot has changed and it has changed for the better. The people are more in control of their governments. It is still  not ideal and we still need to learn to control and manage our governments better, but around the world... in a million tiny little steps. People are fixing their governments for the better.

But why do we need a government my libertarian friends ask me.

Its simple. Back when I was a libertarian my history knowledge was still pretty terrible. I used to think things like the Gold Standard was a good idea, I later changed my perception when I  learnt the Gold Standard was a major contributor to the Great Depression.  I also used to think governments were bad... until I learnt why we invented governments.

Many life forms have learnt that working together is a powerful survival mechanism, and we have probably been social creatures for longer than we have been primates. Nature has shown us, that species that work together as a team are better at survival than if they were just isolated individuals.

So humans have throughout the ages always grouped up and formed centres of power. We would have been gangs of early primates with alphas. We then moved onto clans and villages with chiefs. Not too long ago we had Kings of Fiefdoms, city states and then eventually kingdoms. Up until this point the wealthy and their armies could get away with just about anything and everything.

For 99.9% of humanity this was a pretty terrible deal. You would had no rights and the wealthy could abuse you any way they wish. You were the property of the ultra wealthy.

So of course, most of humanity deciding this was a bad deal went to war to fight for the rights of the majority. We have had events like the writing of the Magna Carta and the French Revolution as civilization  curtailed the power of the ultra wealthy.

From Kings and their Kingdoms we evolved to Presidents and countries. You must remember, we had just evolved from the time period of  kings and kingdoms (at the time of writing this there are still monarchies around the world) so we as yet had to learn which government model works the best. 

Of course many people had many different ideas on how a government should work. Every one went with what they thought worked best. Communists, Capitalists, Socialists, Fascists, Nationalists.... just about every ist you could think of.

Some of these we obviously got very wrong and others seems to be working better than the rest. Some of the biggest differences between government models was between which economic ideology was the most ideal: Communist vs Capitalist & Libertarian vs Socialist.

In reality we learnt none of these supposed utopian ideals were perfect for humanity. People were too diverse. There was no, “one size fits all. What we found out through trial and error is that mixed market economies worked the best. 

If we went too Capitalist we found out that society regressed. With no government to regulate the whims of the ultra wealthy, humanity suffered. Societies become unstable as wealth is accumulated by a few. The bigger the gap between the rich and the poor the more unstable your society becomes.

We also found out that if we went too Socialist, corruption got centralized and and there was no incentive for anyone to do anything but the least amount of work possible.

To return to a period of a government not run by the people means that we would return to the age of Kings and their armies. It would become the wild west all over again, where those with power would have it absolutely and have no accountability. This is what we spent centuries fighting against.

I believe one of the fathers of economics said it best:

"Capitalism is the extraordinary belief that the nastiest of men for the nastiest of motives will somehow work for the benefit of all". Keynes

When people ask me today, which are you? A Capitalist or a Socialist. I say I am neither. I believe in a Mixed Market Economy. One where we have the capitalistic incentive of earning more for working harder, but also a model that adds to social stability and has the humanity to include social welfare.