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Boardroom Spying Debacle at HP
theodp writes "As word spread that HP was dumping Board member George Keyworth for press leaks, Newsweek broke the bigger story: HP Chairwoman Patricia Dunn was so obsessed with finding the leaker that she authorized a team of independent electronic-security experts to spy on the phone records of calls made from HP Directors' home and private cell phones. Not only that, phone records were obtained via pretexting, the controversial practice of obtaining information under false pretenses. After Dunn laid out the surveillance scheme for the Board last May, HP Director Tom Perkins quit on the spot, characterizing Dunn's actions as illegal and unethical. HP is also coming under fire for playing dumb to the SEC about the reasons behind Perkins' resignation. Perkins, who helped launch HP's computer division in the 60's, has asked the FTC, FCC and the Justice Department to investigate."
The leader of our country sets an example for the leaders of our corporations
having women in power won't necessarily make for a kinder, gentler world.
Can someone please explain to me what authority she had to authorize phone taps on private cell phones? She is not law enforcement. WTF?
-d
"Here Lies Philip J. Fry, named for his uncle, to carry on his spirit"
HP used to make decent products. Now they make craptacular products and have management that read from Stalin's playbook.
It's a shame, really.
Insisting on "correct" English is like saying that there is only one, definitive recipe for chili.
Dunn sounds like a melodramatic sociopath bent on her own power trip. It's bad enough to hire outside inspectors to track down a leaker, and to resort to snooping on personal call records, which is truly dirty pool. But once she had her proof, why not confront that director personally, rather than pull a stunt like this in front of the full board? Had she confronted this guy directly, he may have resigned quietly. Instead, she's now thrown the spotlight on her disregard for personal ethics or the respect of her colleagues.
That said, it's pathetic how easy it was for these investigators to get personal phone records on these accounts. You'd think there would be some standards in place, such as only sending the information to addresses already tied to the account, or something. I'm no security expert, but this looks pretty shoddy.
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Funny, but quoting from The Register article
"The situation is regrettable," Ms. Dunn said in a statement provided to the Wall Street Journal. "But the bottom line is that the board has asserted its commitment to upholding the standards of confidentiality that are critical to its functioning. A board can't serve effectively if there isn't complete trust that what gets discussed stays in the room."
Can the board serve effectively if there isn't complete trust or confidentiality anyway? If the CEO is spying on you at any or at all times?
More music, fewer hits
That's right. In fact, no one should ever mind anyone reading their (e)mail or listening to their phone calls, unless they have something to hide. It should be legal for cops to just come in your house any time they feel like it, just to make sure you're not doing anything you shouldn't be. Random house checks by the cops would help put an end to the evil crimes of pot smoking and non-missionary sex. After all, if you're not doing anything wrong, you don't have anything to hide.
OK, who's the first to volunteer for random house checks?
taken over by MBA type idiots
More
Bullsh*t comes from your
Ass
In a way, this kind of thing is an outgrowth of the nature of a corporation. Corporations are created to insulate individuals from the consequences of their actions. Not that any reasonable person doing this kind of thing should expect a corporate umbrella to save them, but it seems to be a prevalent mindset in corporation culture. After all, that's the name of the game - hide behind something.
"We are all geniuses when we dream"
- E.M. Cioran
Why should have to leave? Let her resign. And their privacy may have been violated (and probably was), they just haven't found out yet or don't have physical proof so they are keeping mum.
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
Most leaks are acceptable by societal norms, but a few leaks are not. Examples include leaking the name of a CIA agent or leaking the invasion plans for the landing at Normandy in World War II. These types of leaks can kill people.
The leaks "suffered" by the HP board fall into the category of the acceptable types of leaks.
The attempts by Patricia Dunn (the HP chairwoman of the board) to violate the privacy of board members in order to "stop" these leaks is excessive and illegal. The person who should immediately leave the board is her, not Tom Perkins. Dunn should also spend some time in a California prison.
The real boneheaded move here is that she disclosed to everyone what she was up to, presumably because she thought it would be OK with them or something. That was totally stupid! Anyone knows that if you want to break the law like that, you have to keep it under the table and OUT of the boardroom discussions... DUH!
stuff |
"Pretexting" is a new term to me... it seems to be synonymous with what's called "social engineering" in computer security circles. (The colloquial term is "lying".) Is that the case?
...is Tom Perkins's ethical behavior. I only hope that when I get to be a director, I would have the cajones to resign rather than to serve under or carry out orders from a boss with a history of such behavior. Well, that and the handwriting on the wall (SEC investigation) might have helped influence his decision. But what a way to go!
If someone has broken no laws, and has nothing to hide, then they should be doubly pissed that someone invades their privacy.
Hi Hoi Polloi. You're totally right. I should have been more clear. The board has known what Dunn did since May. So my real thought is not that they all should have resigned, but that they all should have done something. Yes, make her resign. If not that, then public disclosure and shareholder review. Something. But they sat on this for May, June, July, August, and now we're into September, and they've still done nothing. Well, they've finally been caught off guard by being exposed. Maybe that will stir them into action.
I just think these dumb idiots bent over and let her screw them. And when they found out how much they had been violated, they apparently just stayed hunched over, waiting for more. It's pathetic.
My Greasemonkey scripts for Digg &
In my mind this is symptomatic of the corporate life in the higher echelons. Basically, these people at the top don't have te requisite life experience, or call it wisdom, or even common sense, to act like adults. Corporate life to these people is nothing more than a replay of high school. They're scheming, pulling pranks, cheating, and generally making stuff up as they go along.
It's not that there aren't established procedures and rules (and laws) of how to monitor employees (even board members). It's that this Ms. Dunn can't be bothered to look it up. Or even ask human resources. Making stuff up as you go along is what passes for "innovative", "bold", "leadership.
She's cut from the same jib as, say, those Enron guys. These are people who see life as a game, and yes, they're winning, if you keep score the way they do. Morally, as human beings, they're of course pieces of shit.
It's not surprising the rest of the board members stayed on board. They're used to treating people like children, and they've not fully grown up themselves, so this sort of irresponsible prank seems logical to them. They're the business equivalents of Bill O'Reilly - great ratings, but ultimately they're just spewing hot air, and their oversimplified black-and-white world is so disconnected from the real world, they wouldn't know it if it bit them in the ass.
But there you have it. Apparently the Chairwoman at HP is willing to go to great, and illegal lengths, to run the company. Will the shareholders say "hey, wait, maybe having someone at the top who's willing to commit felonies isn't such a great idea"? Only time will tell..
SCO employee? Check out the bounty
However, she is easily indictable and her imprisonment will serve as a fine example for others of her ilk who doubtless think likewise.
Correcting the problem means admitting that there is one to begin with, and perhaps that one might even be partially responsible for it. These are difficult acts for anyone, let alone someone who seems to think of themselves as infallible. Much easier to dump the complainers and leakers, and continue behaving as before, being careful to make sure that your options can be cashed out quietly, that any contractual benefits are felony-proofed (if such is possible), and that your stockholders and customers can be lulled back to sleep.
Is this how business always was, and we're just more aware (or cynical) about it, or have the people that run corporations gotten more self-serving recently?
Mostly agree with you.
Given that corporations are essentially immortal sociopaths, I think their structures *select* for sociopaths or people who are comfortable being in a sociopathic structure.
Only "young" corporations do not show these traits.
It is possible to be honest/noble but you won't get campaign contributions from the corporations (so you must be in line with a sociopathic agenda to get funding). The lust for power is very corrupting- even of people who start out good. A lot of idealistic republicans broke their word over term limits because they came to think they were more important than they really were.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
So it's OK for them to know where I shop, what I buy, where I go and who I talk to but not OK for others to know the same about them?
What's data mining got to do with anything? This is about spying and fraud.
They think it's OK to read through employee email and listen in on their phone calls but God help the poor slob who does it to a member of the board?
Come on - if you make calls or send emails from company devices on company time you have no right to expect privacy, particularly in the time of SOX compliance. Everything I send has to be recorded, by law, in case it's needed in court. If you were to RTFA (or even RTFS) you'd see that the problem here is the hiring of a private security company to obtain personal phone records from someone's home lines. That's not OK, ever.
---- Den ene knappen er powerknapp, den andre er Bender voice knapp "Bite My Shiny Metal Ass"
I don't see any reason why it shouldn't be a requirement for corporate upper management to have to take an APD test.
:D
The reason that would be a waste of time is that most of these people are really, really smart. Maybe not maths geniuses or that kind of smart, but they know exactly how to pull the levers in people to get what they want. Unless the APD test checks for some sort of chemical imbalance (preferably while they are comatose), they will know exactly what to say to the relevant questions in order to make themselves look as un-sociopathic as possible. Hell, most of them will look it up before the test, or pay a psychologist to do it for them.
We are trying to determine if you have any positive emotions towards your fellow man. Do you like children?
Why yes, I love children, I donated $500 to a childrens foundation just this month!
There really isn't an easy answer to this one. Can they do the jobs they are employed to do better than anyone else? If the answer is yes, then they belong in that job. The only thing that can be done is to ensure that if they commit crimes, they are punished to an extent that it will give other sociopaths pause before attempting the same thing. If the RIAA (sociopath city) can sue someone per song in their collection, high level corporate crime should be dealt with on a per-victim basis.
Steal the pension funds of 500 people? Thats 500 counts of theft or fraud, to be run one after another. Even if they only get 6 months per case, thats still 250 years of hard time. That might seem a bit harsh, but as they say, with great power comes great responsibility.
What he can't kill, he has sex on. Trent.