Why are Nepali web sites being hackers’ target? – Part 1

By: Kumu Khanal

hacking1 In recent days there have been a lot of reports of hackers taking control of Nepali websites. I would like to discuss why are they targeting Nepali websites.

Why do hackers hack? Hackers mainly are of three types: hardcore criminal hackers, criminal hackers and non-criminal hackers. Hardcore criminal hackers are after money. They are constantly seeking money and materials that can be sold to a third party. Personal information like identity, credit cards can be sold over internet. Software, documents, movies, music can also be sold offline or online. They can use all kinds of tools like spywares, trojan horse, phishing and so on.   

Other criminal hackers steal materials for their own use or share with their friends like photos, movies, music, and documents. On the other hand, non-criminal hackers might be learning hacking on their way to become criminal hackers or stopping them.

Some do hacking for recognition, fun, show-off their skills, or just to learn how it is done. There are others who hack for vengeance. Some good hackers hack to exploit vulnerability and warn the websites owners (too bad, there are not many good hackers!).

Why Nepali websites? I don’t think Nepali websites attract the hardcore criminal hackers as they have nothing to get from the sites or the visitors to the sites. People in Nepal rarely do financial transactions online. Online banking is also available only on a selected few banks; that too with very limited banking options. Due to unreliable power supply, internet use in our daily needs is still a luxury that we can’t afford. So, the hackers we are facing in Nepali websites should mostly be non-criminal hackers in their learning stage.

Does that mean we don’t need to worry? No, hackers cause financial damage in terms of downtime and loss of data. Sites also loose their credibility. Nobody would like to visit a site that is hacked or has higher potential to be hacked.

Hacker Cost: In 1995, when, we in Nepal didn’t know what internet was (although, first email service in Nepal started in 1994), hacking cost businesses some $800 million around the world. In another report in 2000 the cost was estimated to be $1.6 trillion in 30 countries. I don’t have the latest estimate but you can guess how the hacker cost should have increased in the past 10 years. Apart from financial loss they can cause mental and psychological damage which can’t be quantified.

But, Nepal is a different case. Our sites may not have that much value and hence hacking impact might be less. But, there hasn’t been any study on hacker cost in Nepalese contest so we can’t be too sure. I strongly believe such a study would benefit both the website creators and their website users. It will also encourage webmasters to adopt security measures in the websites, hence creating peace-of-mind in both visitors and the site owners.

In the next part, I will review some of the hacked websites and their user bases in terms of publically available web monitoring tools like Alexa.

To be continued …

Nepali Movies – Agni Parikshya

Machapuchre Films P. Ltd. Presents
Nepali film – Agni Parikshya
Cast Rajesh Hamal, Bina Budhathoki, Saranga Shrestha, Shrawan Lamichhane, Hemanta Budhathoki, Narayan Tripathi etc.
Story/Direction – Surya Bohara

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Zenisha Moktan – Miss Nepal 2009

Model Zenisha Moktan was crowned Miss Nepal 2009. She will represent Nepal in the Miss World 2009 pageant. Zenisha beat 14 other finalists to win the title of the beauty pageant organized by The Hidden Treasure


The first runner-up, Richa Thapa Magar, will represent Nepal in Miss Earth competition to be held in Philippines. Kunchan Tamang Moktan bagged second runner-up position.

Congratulation Zenisha and other titles winners!

Last year’s Miss Nepal was cancelled in the last minutes amongst protest from then ruling party, CPN-Maoist. Last year, during the preparation of the contest Zenisha was dragged into controversy with a video claiming to be hers. But it turned out to be a fake video.

Following is a slide show of all the Miss Nepal from the start of the event in 1994 to 2014 (updated in 2015).

Namrata Shrestha video incident: Lesson to be learnt

It was a sad incident that an intimate video of Namrata Shrestha and Kichaa Man Chitrakaar (DJ Tantrik) was released to the general public. They were aspiring artists in Nepali film and music industries. That might be the reason they got overwhelming response from Nepali people at home and those living all around the world. After a similar incident involving singer Prakash Ojha this was the second biggest sex scandal in Nepal. I don’t know weather Namrata and Tantrik forgot about Prakash Ojha incident or choose to ignore it.

Apart from these events there are many such videos being released from time to time in discussion forums. Those people, being unknown to general public, do not attract that much attention. But the person involved do not get less pain and frustration than the well known persons like Namrata or Ojha. It is not only the person who is seen in the video; there are whole lot of persons, like spouses, children, friends, and relatives, who are affected by such incidents. Our society is not that advanced to digest such acts released to public. So, care should be exercised while taking such photos or videos. Damage once done can not be reversed.

Some suggestions, that I can think of now are:

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Travel Log Kathmandu – Pokhara – Palpa – Lumbini – Chitwan (Part 1)

By: Raju Shrestha

With lots of passion and enthusiasm I decided to take a break and go on leave to my beautiful home country Nepal with basic motive to set out for tour. Time just did not show no mercy and the schedule was so hectic and busy, visiting relatives and doing all those formalities! It was far more time consuming and expensive than anticipated. So, at last I need to make decision of short trip to Pokhara. We made a plan for 4 days. Kathmandu – Pokhara – Palpa – Lumbini – Chitwan – Kathmandu. So with this short listed places on our head we made our tank full and jet-off in search of natural pleasure. With every blow of air I thanked nature by blessing my country so much. Cool air blowing through, rivers and rivulets all over, huts and pure Nepali lifestyles added extra perfume of perfection that I was searching when I made my mind to go Nepal.

This was my first trip ever. I never thought, riding bikes or even sitting as a pillion is a hard job when it’s too long. So, we decided to take rest and eat lunch in Malekhu with fish, which was also fun altogether.

All I was doing was praising the charisma of nature. Halo shining through this pictures is a resemblance of excitement and pleasure to know the nature by so near.

Overtaking is indeed a tough job to accomplish neatly. A small mistake’s outcome is so big that we all are well aware. Ain’t it?

Finally, we reached Pokhara and decided to stay in lake-side for that night. Glad to see the beauty of over-hyped Fewa lake, clouds all around so no mountains.

The panorama was so good that we almost forgot our friends. All were busy taking snaps in their own world of imagination and excitement. Some time later we accumulated and decided to get back. There we regretted of not having group pictures, blaming each other we reached hotels to get some sleep.

Next morning we went to see Davis falls. Again it was so splendidly running looking at which I imagined how David actually fell here when there were no bars. It was another masterpiece or gift of nature.

Then we set out for our next destination Palpa. Getting there was actual fun, back pain caused by riding bike was easily overcome by the pleasure of eye experiencing nature.

I feel like I am in heaven when I was taking this picture.

(…to be continued.)

Namrata Shrestha Sex Scandal

Namrata started acting in Grade 1. Watch Namrata’s first film Watch “Sangani” here.

Namrata Shrestha is in the top of the news these days with the release of her latest movie ‘Mero Euta Saathi Chha’.  I haven’t seen the movie yet but I have heard that it is a cocktail of Hollywood, Bollywood and Korean movies. She had shown her acting potential in her last movie  ‘Sano Sansar‘.

Also watch: A video about Namrata:

This post is not about her acting or movies but about a 8 minutes video circulating in the internet recently. I am not much sure, but the dimple of the girl on the video resembles that of Namrata. The girl in the video seems to be well skilled in what she was doing. Although the couple are talking in English it sounds pretty much like Nepali ascent. The girl, although looking a bit drunk, is well aware of the video recording as the flash lights are turned on. At some point, she tells “turn it off please…. its disturbing”.

Please see the screenshot from video and compare with the original photo of Namrata. Do you think it is Namrata? If the latest scandal proves to be true she is supposed to be on headline for quite some time.

I hope the video is not a fabricated one to defame the aspiring artist.

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Nepali Movie – Ladai

Nepali film – Ladai
Starring, Sushil Chhetri, Niruta Singh, Sunil Thapa, Bina Budhathoki etc.
Direction – Badri Adhikari

Ladai is the CR Films presentation and is produced by Chiranjivi Banset. The director Badri Adhikari is the father of actress Keki Adhikari.

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Nepali movie – Shiva Shakti (Only description )

Sekhar Koirala presents
Nepali film – Shiva Shakti
Cast , Bipana Thapa, Sajja Mainali, Nikhil Upreti, Laya Sangraula, Deepak chhetri, Pawan Mainali, Hemanta Budhathoki etc.
Story and scripts: Ugesh Rayamajhi
Direction – Kishor Rana Magar

‘Shiva Shakti’ is the third movie of Om Production Pvt. Ltd. It is the first Nepali movie made on Fuji Color.

Nepali Movie – Dharma Sankat

Nepali movie – Dharma Sankat
Starring – Shiva Shrestha, Gauri Malla, Jharana Thapa, Ramesh Upreti, Sunil Thapa, Narayan Tripathi, Laxmi giri, Kishore Malakar, Bipana Thapa, etc.
Director – Resh Raj Acharya

The Nepali movie ‘Dharma Sankat’ is the presention of Sunil Kumar Thapa, husband of actress Jharana Thapa. The debut movie of the couple was successful, leading to other movies by Jharana and Sunil. The story of the movie is written by Sunil Kumar Thapa and Jharana is named the producer of the movie. The director, Resh Raj Acharya, has written the script and dialogue of the movie.
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Nepali Movie – Jana Yuddha

Nepali film – Jana Yuddha
Starring Sushil Chhetri, Aakash Adhikari, Nandita KC, Ramchandra Adhikari etc.
Director – Bimal Poudel

A presentation of Jana Cinema, ‘Jana Yuddha’ is a revolutionary movie made on the people’s war. The story of the movie is written by the director Bimal Poudel. The movie features background music by Jiwan Tandan, editing Banish Shah, action by Roshan Shrestha, script/dialogue by Bishnu Neupane, choreography by Raju Shah / Dinesh Adhikari / Raju KC, cinematography by Mahendra Thapa / Raju KC, music by Khusiram Pakhrin / Laxman Sesh / Suresh Adhikari, and produced by Hom Raj Poudel.
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Nepali Film – Binti Patra

Sakun Films P. Ltd’s first movie
Nepali Film – Binti Patra
Cast – Sushil Chhetri, Sanchita Shah, Suraj RD, Raju Lamichane, Jenny Kuwar etc.
Screenplay and Direction – Pramod Bhandari

This is the placeholder of movie ‘Binti Patra’. I will updated this post when the official version is available online.

Please watch other movies here. Thank you.

Lack of Educated Artists in Nepali Film Industry

Note: This article was written in 2009. There are new entries in Nepali movie industry with better talent and education, not covered by this article.

The history of Nepali movies is not that long but it has grown a lot in recent days. Movie industry is one of the most creative industry and it demands the most creative crews to work for it. But to our disappointment, only a few Nepali involved in the industry have a university degree. A sad truth is that 60% of the Nepali film artists haven’t passed 10th grade.
It is seen that educated artists have succeeded in their fields as compared to uneducated artists. When we talk about education Rajesh Hamal, with a MA degree in English literature, comes the first due to his education and acting skills. There are many who don’t like him but it is undisputed that he is a super-hit actor of Nepali film industry.

Some new actresses like Sanchita Luitel, Malvika Subba have master’s degree. Mithila Sharma, Arunima Lamsal, Sarita Lamichanne also managed to get a bachelor’s degree.

There are some educated film directors and writers who are doing good works in Nepali movie industry. Some directors with a masters degree are Deepak Rayamajhi, Daya Ram Dahal, Naresh Poudel, Desh Bhakta Khanal, Dinesh DC, and BS Thapa. Writers and technicians like Javed Shah, Dr Bhola Rijal  also have masters degree. Baikuntha Maskey(Bachelor,Photography), Tapa Nath Sukla (Sound Engineer), Pradeep Kumar Upadhaya(Sound Engineer) are other educated pioneer in the Nepali film industry.

Is that all?

I think so. If you know of somebody who has university degree in Nepali film industry please write in comment. I will edit the post accordingly.

The question remains. Why don’t educated people opt for the entertainment industry? Is the age old belief, acting in movies in not a decent job, a culprit?

Comments are welcome.

List of Film personalities with Name (and, Education)

Artists

Dr Bhola Rijal  (MD)
Dinesh Dc (Bsc, MBA, BA)
Daya Ram Dahal (MA)
Deepak Shrestha (Bachelor)
Deepak Rayamajhi – MA(Film Direction)
Naresh Poudel – MA (2 faculties)
Desh Bhakta Khanal – MA (Politics)
BS Thapa – BLLB,MA(Politics)
Yabaraj Lama – I.A
Navin Subba – I.A
Ujwal Ghimire – Bachelor
Keshav Bhattrai – B.Com

Writers and Technicians

Nayan Raj Pandey – BL
Javed Shah – MA(Cinematography)
Basanta Shrestha  – Bachelor(Dance)
Pakash Shrestha – B.com,Diploma(Music)

Actors  /Actress   

Rajesh Hamal  – MA (English)
Bijay Lama – Pilot
Nikhil Uprety – I.A
Mithili Sharma  – Bachelor (Home science and Dance)
Puja Chand – Isc
Richa Ghimire – Bachelor (Journalism)
Arunima Lamsal – Bachelor
Sanchita Luitel – MA (Currently)
Sarita Lamichanne – Bachelor