The CBC is marking the 20th anniversary of the notorious Hampsterdance web site with a 10,000-word oral history by arts reporter Leah Collins, promising "the twisted true story of one of the world's first memes."

An anonymous reader writes: Deidre LaCarte, a Canadian martial arts instructor, created the site as part of a contest between her friend and her sister to see whose site could attract the most visitors by December 31st, 1998. Deidre won -- then remembers later waking up to news crews at her front door asking about that web site she'd created that had become a worldwide phenomenon. Slashdot's CmdrTaco linked to the site on February 9th, 1999, and hundreds of millions of pageviews later the CBC traces the site's evolution into Hampsterdance -- the Album, which included the less-remembered rock song "Hampster Party." (Recorded under a pseudonym by The Boomtang Boys, it was described by the Onion A.V. Club as "the definitive hamster party anthem of the new millennium," in their year-end retrospective "Least Essential Albums of 2000.")

The CBC also interviewed members from a competing U.K. band that created knock-off versions of the site's hamster-y song for their own hit record, Cognoscenti vs. Intelligentsia. The Canadian hamster band enjoyed some popularity on Disney radio -- one song even became Hannah Montana's ringtone, and Britney Spears reportedly expressed an interest in recording their soulful hamster ballad, "Life is Good." Hallmark also says they ultimately used hampsterdance songs in over 100 different products. But whatever happened to the web site itself?

Bill Porfido, president of a merchandising firm called Abatis International, eventually purchased the site, and described the resulting disaster as "How one man sunk a million trying to turn the world's most annoying website into the biggest thing in kiddie entertainment." Failed monetization attempts included a cartoon series about a world-travelling "Hampster" band -- the official Hampsterdance.com site is still selling a DVD titled How The Hampsters Saved Winter. "One million dollars. It's almost a million, what we lost," Porfido complains, saying the site is now maintained by his old business partner, Brian Hoffman -- and adding "I haven't spoken to Brian in about three years, but I know he's tired of it."
But Porfido later admits that "even though it was a money sponge, I enjoyed every minute of it.

"People are like, 'Hampsterdance? That's you? That's you?!' It kind of gave you a little taste of fame even though it was -- bogus. (Laughs)."

A growing number of Chinese companies are throwing their support behind Huawei Technologies following the recent arrest of its chief financial officer in Canada, taking such steps as offering subsidies for staff who buy the telecom equipment maker's smartphones. From a report: Many Chinese businesses have told employees they will receive subsidies if they buy Huawei smartphones to aid the company. Most are subsidizing 10% to 20% of the purchase price, with some even covering the full amount. Over 20 Chinese companies also took to social media to announce that they will increase purchases of other Huawei products, such as its business management system.

The show of support has been broad, from information technology providers to food companies. A regional government official said that several hundred businesses were conducting such programs nationwide. Electronics maker Shanghai Youluoke Electronic and Technology is fully subsidizing up to two Huawei smartphones per employee, while display equipment maker Shenzhen Yidaheng Technology will cover 18% of the price for Huawei or ZTE units. Fuchun Technology, a communications service company listed on Shenzhen Stock Exchange announced on social media on Dec. 11 that it would give each of its 200 employees who buy Huawei's smartphone before the end of 2018 between 100 and 500 yuan ($14.5 to $72.5).

An anonymous reader shares a report: The stunning Korolev crater in the northern lowlands of Mars is filled with ice all year round owing to a trapped layer of cold Martian air that keeps the water frozen. The 50-mile-wide crater contains 530 cubic miles of water ice, as much as Great Bear Lake in northern Canada, and in the centre of the crater the ice is more than a mile thick. Images beamed back from the red planet show that the lip around the impact crater rises high above the surrounding plain. When thin Martian air then passes over the crater, it becomes trapped and cools to form an insulating layer that prevents the ice from melting. The latest picture is a composite of five strip-like images taken from the European Space Agency's Mars Express probe, which swung into orbit around the planet on Christmas Day 2003. On the same day, the orbiter released the Beagle 2 lander, a British probe built on a shoestring budget, which touched down but failed to fully open on the surface. Mars Express photographed the Korolev crater with its high-resolution stereo camera, an instrument that can pick out features 10 metres wide, or as small as 2 metres when used in super-resolution mode.

A day after the US Department of Justice charged two Chinese nationals for being members of a state-sponsored hacking group and accused the Chinese government of orchestrating a string of hacks around the world, five other governments have stepped in with similar accusations. From a report: Australia, Canada, Japan, New Zealand, and the UK have published official statements today formally blaming China of hacking their government agencies and local companies. All statements are in regards to the supposed involvement of the Chinese Ministry of State Security (MSS) in supporting the activity of a hacking group known as APT10. In a DOJ indictment yesterday, the US says this group hacked companies in 12 countries, and later breached cloud service providers, wormed through their infrastructure, and hacked even more companies. US officials said the primary purpose of these hacks was to steal trade secrets and intellectual property that the Chinese government later passed to local Chinese companies, helping create an unfair advantage for local firms on the global market.

The New York Times obtained hundreds of pages of Facebook documents which were generated in 2017 that show that the social network considered these companies business partners and effectively exempted them from its privacy rules. From a report: Facebook allowed Microsoft's search engine Bing to see the names of nearly all users' friends without their consent, let Spotify, Netflix, and the Royal Bank of Canada read, write, and delete users' private messages, and see participants on a thread, allowed Amazon to get users' names and contact information through their friends, and let Yahoo view streams of friends' posts "as recently as this summer" despite publicly claiming it had stopped sharing such information a year ago, the report said. Collectively, applications made by these technology companies sought the data of hundreds of millions of people a month.

The records also show that Russian search giant Yandex, which was accused last year by Ukraine's security service for giving user data to Kremlin, also had access to Facebook's unique user IDs in 2017. A Yandex spokeswoman told the Times that the company was unaware of the access to user data provided by Facebook. Yandex did not immediately respond to BuzzFeed News' request for comment. In response to the report, Steve Satterfield, Facebook's Director of Privacy and Public Policy defended the actions of the social network.

hackingbear writes: Germany's IT watchdog has expressed skepticism about calls for a boycott of Chinese telecoms giant Huawei, saying it has seen no evidence the firm could use its equipment to spy for Beijing, news weekly Spiegel reported. "For such serious decisions like a ban, you need proof," the head of Germany's Federal Office for Information Security (BSI), Arne Schoenbohm, told Spiegel, adding that his agency had no such evidence. The U.S. has been pressuring German authorities for months to drop Huawei, according to people familiar with the matter, but the Germans have asked for more specific evidence to demonstrate the security threat. German authorities and telecom executives have yet to turn up any evidence of security problems with Chinese equipment vendors, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Separately, at a (secret lobster-themed) meeting in Canada in July 2018, espionage chiefs from Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the U.K. and the U.S. -- all signatories to a treaty on signals intelligence, and often referred to as the "Five Eyes" -- agreed to do their best to contain the global growth of Chinese telecom (vendor) Huawei, the Australian Financial Review reported (paywalled). On the other hand, documents leaked by WikiLeaks and Snowden claimed that the NSA, the leader of the Five Eyes, tapped German Chancellery for decades and bugged routers made by Cisco, the leading American networking equipment vendor.

hackingbear shares a report from Politico, adding: "This fuels the suspicion that the Chinese executive is held as a hostage for the ongoing trade negotiation with China." From the report: President Donald Trump said on Tuesday that he reserved the right to weigh in on the Justice Department's case against the CFO of Huawei, if it would help him close a trade deal with Beijing or would serve other American national security interests. "If I think it's good for what will be certainly the largest trade deal ever made -- which is a very important thing -- what's good for national security -- I would certainly intervene if I thought it was necessary," Trump told Reuters. Trump added that President Xi Jinping of China had not called him about the case, but that the White House had been in touch with both the Justice Department and Chinese officials. Huawei's CFO, Meng Wanzhou, was arrested in Canada earlier this month at the request of American authorities, who allege that she violated U.S. sanctions against Iran. Yesterday, a Vancouver judge ruled that Meng would be released on a $7.5 million bail if she remains in British Columbia.

A judge in Vancouver, British Columbia, has set a $7.5 million U.S. bail for Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou, who was arrested last week on suspicion of violating U.S. trade sanctions against Iran. "The United States had asked the Vancouver court to deny bail for Meng, whose father is a billionaire and a founder of Huawei, calling her a flight risk," reports CNBC. From the report: Canada has been expected to extradite Meng to the United States over charges that the company improperly took payments from Iran in violation of sanctions against the country. Meng's next moves will be closely watched, but it is likely with her corporate and family connections that she will be able to make bail. The $10 million CAD ($7.5 million USD) includes $7 million CAD ($5.2 million USD) cash and $3 million CAD ($2.2 million USD) more from five or more guarantors, presented by Meng and her attorney's as sureties that she would remain in the country. As conditions of the bail agreement, Meng must surrender her passports, wear a GPS tracking device and be accompanied by security detail whenever she leaves her residence.

It's an ad duopoly battle. From a report: Facebook is starting to test search ads in its search results and Marketplace, directly competing with Google's AdWords. Facebook first tried Sponsored Results back in 2012 but eventually shut down the product in 2013. Now it's going to let a small set of automotive, retail, and ecommerce industry advertisers show users ads on the search results page on mobile in the US and Canada.

They'll be repurposed News Feed ads featuring a headline, image, copy text, and a link in the static image or carousel format that can point users to external websites. Facebook declined to share screenshots as it says the exact design is still evolving. Facebook may expand search ads to more countries based on the test's performance.

UnderAttack writes: Scammers are attempting to trick Chinese victims into sending thousands of dollars in order to secure the release of Chinese Huawei executive Meng who was arrested in Canada last week. The messages claim to originate from Ms. Meng and suggest that she found a corrupt guard who will let her go for a few thousand dollars. Of course, there will be riches for anybody who is willing to help (and more). The scam is reportedly targeting people via WeChat, which may have a higher success rate than more widely distributed scams.

One of the messages reads (translated): "Hello, I am MENG Wanzou. Currently, I have been detained by Canadian customs. I have limited use of my phone. Right now CIA is trying to get me into the hands of the US government. I bribed the guard of my room, and urgently need US$2000 to get out of here. Once I am out, I will reward you 200,000 shares of Huawei. I will be good on my word. if you are single, we can also discuss the important thing in life. The guard's name is David, the account number is 52836153836252, swift 55789034. I will be good on my word."

Tech executives worry China will turn to tit-for-tat arrests of Americans in response to the detention of Meng Wanzhou. And the worries don't stop there. Kara Swisher, writing at The New York Times: Imagine, if you will (and you should), a big American tech executive being detained over unspecified charges while on a trip to Beijing. That is exactly what a number of Silicon Valley executives told me they are concerned about after the arrest this week of Meng Wanzhou, the chief financial officer of the Chinese telecom company Huawei, in Canada at the behest of United States officials. "It's worrisome, because it's an escalation we did not need," one executive said, referring to the already tense trade talks between the two countries. "What China will do, given all the existing tensions, is anyone's guess."

No one I spoke to would talk on the record, out of fear of antagonizing either side and also because no one knows exactly what is happening. But many expressed worry about the possibility of tit-for-tat arrests. While everyone focuses on the drama of the arrest -- Ms. Meng was grabbed while changing planes at the airport -- and its effect on the trade talks and stock prices, to my mind there is a much more important fight brewing, and it is about tech hegemony. Specifically, who will control the next internet age, and by whose rules will it be run?

Until recently, that answer was clearly the United States, from which the Internet sprang, wiring the world together and, in the process, resulting in the greatest creation of power and wealth in history. While China has always had a strong technology sector, in recent years it has significantly escalated its investment, expertise and innovation, with major support from the government. That hand-in-glove relationship creates obvious issues, and the Trump administration is right to stop pretending that China does not present a threat both from security and innovation perspectives. Further reading: China summons U.S. ambassador, warns Canada of 'grave consequences' if Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou is not released.

"Strange waves rippled across earth and only one person spotted them," reported Forbes, noting that the seismologist then "quickly put out an alert to see if other systems detected the same unusual wave."

"Seismographs picked up the waves as they traveled as far as New Zealand, Chile, Hawaii and Canada. In total, the waves were detected as far as 11,000 miles from their origin, ringing for 20 minutes or more minutes as they passed... As these waves rippled across the globe there were surprisingly no reports of anyone feeling the rumbling."

The Weather Channel now reports that "There was no earthquake large enough to have started these low-frequency signals. Scientists believed a magma shift caused the rumblings," citing a recent interview with Stephen Hicks, a seismologist at the University of Southampton. The Guardian reports: Hicks believes magma may suddenly have drained from a volcanic chamber about 10 miles under the seafloor near Mayotte, setting off the deep rumble that spread around the world. While strong enough to be picked up by sensitive seismometers, the vibrations would have been minuscule: far smaller than a millimetre. "It's something that you wouldn't perceive," he said. Pierre Briole, a geoscientist at Ecole Normale Superieure in Paris, has reached a similar conclusion. He believes that a third of a cubic mile of magma may have drained from a volcanic chamber under the seafloor, unleashing deep vibrations when its roof collapsed.

Much of the seismic sleuthing played out on social media with professional and amateur scientists working together. "Overall, [it has been] a fascinating demonstration of open science on Twitter and engagement between scientists and citizen seismologists," said Hicks.

"Today, a bail hearing was held for Huawei's chief financial officer, who was arrested in Canada on Saturday at the request of U.S. law enforcement," reports The Verge. "The CFO, Meng Wanzhou, is facing extradition to the U.S. for conspiring to defraud banking institutions, according to the Star Vancouver." The Verge reports that her main defense is "a PowerPoint presentation that Meng had once given to explain to a bank in Hong Kong that Huawei had not violated any U.S. sanctions." From the report: Many lined up to see Meng's bail hearing today, after the extremely high-profile arrest that signified the first major break in a U.S. probe that has mostly been kept from the public. The U.S. has an arrest warrant out for Meng that was issued by a New York court on August 22nd. It has 60 days from the time of Meng's arrest on Saturday to provide Canadian courts with evidence and intent.

Meng served on the board for a Hong Kong-based company called Skycom, which allegedly did business with Iran between 2009 and 2014. U.S. banks worked with Huawei at this time, so Iran sanctions were violated indirectly, and Meng therefore committed fraud against these banks. Skycom reportedly had connections to Huawei and at the bail hearing today, Gibb-Carsley argued that Skycom was an unofficial subsidiary of Huawei's, using the same company logo. "Huawei is SkyCom," he said, "This is the crux, I say, of the alleged fraud." The hearing also examined whether Meng would be a flight risk if she was granted the $1 million bail, part of the argument Gibb-Carsley was pushing. "Defense lawyer Martin responded by explaining the Chinese emphasis on saving face, and how Meng wouldn't want her father and Huawei to look bad. Even more than that, 'she would not embarrass China itself,' Martin said."

The European Union should be worried about Huawei and other Chinese technology companies because of the risk they pose to the bloc's industry and security, the EU's technology commissioner said on Friday. From a report: "Do we have to be worried about Huawei or other Chinese companies? Yes, I think we have to be worried about those companies," Andrus Ansip told a news conference in Brussels, days after a top executive at Chinese tech giant Huawei was arrested in Canada as part of an investigation into alleged bank fraud.

Huawei, which generated $93 billion in revenue last year and is seen as a national champion in China, faces intense scrutiny from many Western nations over its ties to the Chinese government, driven by concerns it could be used by Beijing for spying. Ansip said he was concerned because Chinese technology companies were required to cooperate with Chinese intelligence services, such as on "mandatory back doors" to allow access to encrypted data.

He also said those companies produce chips that could be used "to get our secrets." "As normal, ordinary people we have to be afraid," he said, adding he did not have enough information about the recent arrest in Canada.

China is demanding the release of a senior executive at Huawei after she was detained in Canada on extradition charges to the U.S. Wanzhou Meng, who is also the deputy chair of Huawei's board and the daughter of company founder Ren Zhengfei, is suspected of violating U.S. trade sanctions against Iran. NBC News reports: The arrest of Meng Wanzhou, chief financial officer and daughter of the company's founder Ren Zhengfei, spooked investors with U.S. stocks tumbling on fears of a flare-up in Chinese-U.S. tensions. She was arrested in Vancouver, British Columbia, on Dec. 1. China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs said officials have been contacted both in the U.S. and Canada to demand Meng's release. Geng Shuang, a spokesman for the ministry, said her detention needed to be explained, and both countries had to "effectively protect the legitimate rights and interests of the person concerned." A spokesperson for Huawei said in a statement that it "complies with all applicable laws and regulations where it operates, including applicable export control and sanction laws and regulations."

Canada has arrested Huawei's chief financial officer on suspicion of violating U.S. trade sanctions against Iran. "Wanzhou Meng, who is also the deputy chair of Huawei's board and the daughter of company founder Ren Zhengfei, was arrested in Vancouver at the request of U.S. authorities," reports The Globe and Mail. From the report: "Wanzhou Meng was arrested in Vancouver on December 1. She is sought for extradition by the United States, and a bail hearing has been set for Friday," Justice department spokesperson Ian McLeod said in a statement to The Globe and Mail. "As there is a publication ban in effect, we cannot provide any further detail at this time. The ban was sought by Ms. Meng.

A Canadian source with knowledge of the arrest said U.S. law enforcement authorities are alleging that Ms. Meng tried to evade the U.S. trade embargo against Iran but provided no further details. Since at least 2016, U.S. authorities have been reviewing Huawei's alleged shipping of U.S.-origin products to Iran and other countries in violation of U.S. export and sanctions laws.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from CBC.ca: According to Markham automotive security specialist Jeff Bates, owner of Lockdown Security, wireless key fobs have a role to play in many recent car thefts, with thieves intercepting and rerouting their signals -- even from inside homes -- to open and steal cars. According to Bates, many of these thieves are using a method called "relay theft." Key fobs are constantly broadcasting a signal that communicates with a specific vehicle, he said, and when it comes into a close enough range, the vehicle will open and start. The thief will bring a device close to the home's door, close to where most keys are sitting, to boost the fob's signal. They leave another device near the vehicle, which receives the signal and opens the car. Many people don't realize it, Bates said, but the thieves don't need the fob in the car to drive it away. Bates says, if you have a key fob that can wirelessly unlock/start your car, you should not keep it by the front door.

"If you do live in a house, try to leave your keys either upstairs or ... as far away from the vehicle as possible," he said. "The other thing that you can do is there are products out there that you can put your key fob into," such as a faraday cage -- a box used to block radio signals -- a key pouch, which works similarly, or even a steel box.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Washington Post: Facebook executives in recent years appeared to discuss giving access to their valuable user data to some companies that bought advertising when it was struggling to launch its mobile-ad business, according to internal emails quoted in newly unredacted court filings. In an ongoing federal court case against Facebook, the plaintiffs claim that the social media giant doled out people's data secretly and selectively in exchange for advertising purchases or other concessions, even as others were cut off, ruining their businesses. The case was brought by one such company, Six4Three, which claims its business was destroyed in 2015 by Facebook's actions.

In one of the exchanges from the filings, Facebook employees discussed shutting down access "in one-go to all apps that don't spend at least $250k a year to maintain access to the data," according to the trove. The documents reference email exchanges regarding Facebook's relations with several large commercial partners, including Lyft, Tinder, Amazon.com, Airbnb and the Royal Bank of Canada. Facebook denies that it exchanged access to people's data for commercial benefit. Thousands of pages of court filings, which Facebook is fighting to keep sealed -- including in an emergency hearing scheduled for Friday afternoon -- illustrate the shrewd strategies the social network employed as it built its advertising empire. The disclosure sheds light on allegations of anti-competitive behavior that could play into efforts by U.S. and European lawmakers to curb the power of technology giants. "The documents Six4Three gathered for this baseless case are only part of the story and are presented in a way that is very misleading without additional context," Konstantinos Papamiltiadis, Facebook's director of developer platforms and programs, said in a statement. "We stand by the platform changes we made in 2015 to stop a person from sharing their friends' data with developers. Any short-term extensions granted during this platform transition were to prevent the changes from breaking user experience."

Two Iranian officials have been indicted by U.S. federal prosecutors for creating and deploying the notorious SamSam ransomware, which exploits a deserialization vulnerability in Java-based servers. TechCrunch reports: Faramarz Shahi Savandi, 34, and Mohammad Mehdi Shah Mansouri, 27, were indicted by a federal grand jury in New Jersey on Monday on several counts of computer hacking and fraud charges. The case was unsealed Wednesday, shortly before a press conference announcing the charges by U.S. deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein. In total, SamSam has generated some $6 million in proceeds to date -- or 1,430 bitcoin at today's value. In a separate announcement, the Treasury said it had imposed sanctions against two bitcoin addresses associated with the ransomware. The department said the two addresses processed more than 7,000 transactions used to collect ransom demands from victims. "The Iranian defendants allegedly used hacking and malware to cause more than $30 million in losses to more than 200 victims," said Rosenstein. "According to the indictment, the hackers infiltrated computer systems in ten states and Canada and then demanded payment. The criminal activity harmed state agencies, city governments, hospitals, and countless innocent victims."

One of the victims was the City of Atlanta, which was knocked offline earlier this year and spent a projected $2.6 million in recovery. "It was later discovered that the city's computers had long been vulnerable to leaked exploits developed by the National Security Agency -- later stolen and leaked online for anyone to use," reports TechCrunch.

CIStud shares a report from CE Pro: Giant home improvement retailer Lowe's is giving up on the smart home market. The company announced its "difficult decision" to exit the home automation market and is seeking a buyer for its Iris Smart Home business as part of a "strategic reassessment." The announcement is part of multiple other maneuvers by Lowe's that include closing its Orchard Supply Hardware business, dumping its Alacrity Renovation Service, shutting down all its locations in Mexico, and shutting more than 50 locations in the U.S. and Canada. Lowe's Iris was hailed as the only entry-level home automation system that handled ZigBee, Z-Wave and Wi-Fi when it came out in 2012. Speaking to investors, president and CEO Marvin Ellison [lumped Lowe's Iris in with other initiatives as an] "underperforming... non-core business."