Antispam list gets spammed and DDoS attack on Blue Security Blog knocks Typepad, LiveJournal offline

by niranjanPosted on Posted in Blogging, Security, Technology

Users who’ve signed with spam fighting company Blue Security have been recently targeted by spammers and attackers. And on Tuesday a massive denial-of-service attack was launched on Blue Security’s web site which then knocked millions of TypePad and LiveJournal blogs offline. This is how it happened:

When Blue Security’s web site was hit by a distributed denial of service attack attack (DDoS), the company temporarily repointed www.bluesecurity.com to a blog on Six Apart’s TypePad service. The DDoS traffic appears to have followed www.bluesecurity.com to its new home, overwhelming Six Apart’s network and knocking its TypePad and LiveJournal services offline for nearly eight hours.

Distributed denial of service attacks the target (servers and services) by overwhelming requests for information. The requests typically comes from compromised computers. As a result, legitimate users cannot access the site and service. You can see a graphic example of DDoS Attack here.

New Theme

by niranjanPosted on Posted in Admin, Blogging, Technology

If you’re a regular visitor, you can see that I’ve changed the theme. For my rss readers you might or might not see the changes depending on your news reader. Anyway if you care to see it you can directly browse the site.

I’m using WP-Andreas09 theme. It’s a port of an open source template by Andreas Viklund called andreas09. The wordpress them was ported by Ainslie Johnson. This is one of the best themes I came across and it’s packed with following features:

14 colour options selectable from your WordPress admin.
Horizontal menu with unlimited sub-page support.
Built in Widgets support.
Fully prepared for localisation – only one file to translate to any language.
Comments enabled on pages.

The most useful feature for me is the Widgets support. From now I don’t need to edit the template files every time I want to add/delete some items in the sidebar.

Other cool feature is 14 different colour support. I hope you’ll like the new theme.

Return of the MacBook Pro

by niranjanPosted on Posted in Apple, Technology

We received the MacBook Pro from Apple repair center but unfortunately not all of the problems are solved. The complaint we had with the MacBook Pro were:

    1. Heat at the bottom and on the surface (upper left corner and above the function keys).
    2. Whining noise
    3. Track-pad problem
    4. Unstable Optical drive (sometimes cannot eject disks)

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POPURLS.COM

by niranjanPosted on Posted in Links, Random, Technology

POPURLS.COM is an aggregator site which lists the articles from popular web sites. The lists include digg, del.icio.us, furl, spurl, flickr, reddit, tailrank, fark, youtube, google news, yahoo news, newsvine, google video, wired and slashdot. The site has a simple and neat design. It can be a single spot to keep yourself up-to-date on what’s happening in the world of web buzz.

Is the white elephant, in the form of monarchy, worth keeping in Nepal?

by niranjanPosted on Posted in Blogging, Life, Nepal

Mahesh Poudyal, a Nepalese blogger has written a post with very detail analysis on whether Monarchy is worth keeping in Nepal. He analyzes economic, political, and cultural aspect looking at the pros and cons of keeping monarchy in Nepal. The post is very long but it definitely is a worthwhile read.
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Nepalese get back their freedom by fighting for it

by niranjanPosted on Posted in Life, Nepal

Freedom is not a privilege it’s a basic human right and if any individual or group denies you of this right, then you have to ask for it. If you don’t get it back simply by asking for it, you’ve to fight for it. Nepali people asked for it politely which was ignored but just got their freedom back by fighting for it!

Now the sovereignty goes back to people. People power today showed that nobody can ignore it. When the silent majority comes out saying enough is enough. Autocratic regimes fall and dictators kneel down. This is exactly what happened today in Nepal. The people of Nepal have made their voices heard and forced the king to give the power back to them

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King Gyanendra reinstates the dissolved parliament

by niranjanPosted on Posted in Life, Nepal

King Gyanendra finally did what he should have done a long time ago. With the latest royal proclamation he’s reinstated the parliament which was dissolved in 2002. I think everybody; the king, political parties, maoists and royalists have learned enough lessons from the history and should be back to build the nation. This is the first right step the King has taken after misfiring so many times.

Full Text of royal proclamation from eKantipur.com:

(24 April 2006)

Beloved Countrymen,

Convinced that the source of State Authority and Sovereignty of the Kingdom of Nepal is inherent in the people of Nepal and cognizant of the spirit of the ongoing people’s movement as well as to resolve the on-going violent conflict and other problems facing the country according to the road map of the agitating Seven Party Alliance, we, through this Proclamation, reinstate the House of Representatives which was dissolved on 22 May 2002 on the advice of the then Prime Minister in accordance with the Constitution of the Kingdom of Nepal-1990. We call upon the Seven Party Alliance to bear the responsibility of taking the nation on the path to national unity and prosperity, while ensuring permanent peace and safeguarding multiparty democracy. We also summon the session of the reinstated House of Representatives at the Sansad Bhawan, Singha Durbar at 1 P.M. on Friday, 28 April 2006.

We are confident that this House will contribute to the overall welfare of Nepal and the Nepalese people.

We extend our heartfelt condolences to all those who have lost their lives in the people’s movement and wish the injured speedy recovery. We are confident that the nation will forge ahead towards sustainable peace, progress, full-fledged democracy and national unity.

May Lord Pashupatinath bless us all!

Jaya Nepal!

Nepali Photoblog hits BoingBoing

by niranjanPosted on Posted in Blogging, Life, Links, Nepal

Democratic Protests in Nepal is getting unprecedented coverage in International media. Of course it is well deserved and thanks to all the media coverage, world now sees how Nepalese are fighting for their freedom. I just noticed that Boing Boing has a story about A Nepali photoblog site Phalano.com which is publishing the photos of the ongoing protest everyday. I’d mentioned about this blog in my previous entry News from Nepal .

Talking about this photo BoingBoing says:

This demonstrator has shaved a message into his head. I can’t read it. But would welcome a translation from a BoingBoing reader.

There is an excellent translation in the comment with which I totally agree:

You asked for a translation of "Loktantra". The Nepali language used "Prajatantra" to mean "democracy". "Praja" means "subjects" (of a King or monarch), so "Prajatantra" actually means "the rule of subjects", which obviously is unsatisfactory. So the new term "Loktantra" was coined. "Lok" means "folk" – so "Loktantra" would be full democracy, as opposed to a half-hearted version.

Nepalese in Hong Kong march for Democracy at home

by niranjanPosted on Posted in Hong Kong, Life, Nepal

Today Nepalese living in Hong Kong marched from Kowloon Park to Star Ferry in support for full democracy in Nepal. The march turned to a mass gathering at Star Ferry and different speakers gave speeches supporting the demonstrators in Nepal and asking King Gyanendra to give up power. Hong Kong’s lawmaker and activist, Leong Kwok-hung and representatives from human rights groups participated in the march and spoke at the meeting.

Nepalese in Hong Kong come out in Support for Democracy at home

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Nepal King bows to people power but there are outstanding issues!

by niranjanPosted on Posted in Life, Nepal

Nepal’s King Gyanendra has finally bowed to the people power by announcing that he returns the executive power back to people. But many major issues demanded by the people are not addressed and looks like he’s playing a political game just to diffuse the tension temporarily . The major issues not addressed in his royal proclamation are:

  • What about the constituent assembly?
  • What about the Maoist insurgency?

Basically he’s taking things back to where they were 5 years ago. If we just go back to 1990 constitution then he effectively remains with power to dissolve the elected parliament if he wishes to do so in the future and the Royal Nepalese Army still remains under his control. So, leaders and Nepalese people don’t give up until you get the full democracy. The 1990 constitution is flawed and it basically was a compromise between the Palace and Political parties at that time.

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