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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.
Legal experts vary in their views on the extent to which pretexting is a violation of criminal law.
I work at a bank, and we have to take yearly courses on Pre-Text calling, because it's such as issue here.
also here is printer unfriendly with the annoying javascript popup
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"
Tom Perkins, as in Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers.
This is pretty dramatic.
. . . has documents here: Hewlett-Packard Targeted Board In Leak Probe
...the future crusty old bastards are already drinking the Kool-Aid.
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.
Stop by my site where I write about ERP systems & more
Believe it or not, it's hard to get worked up about this. Sure, reading the Slashdot text got me mad. It sounds shocking -- what a huge violation of privacy! But then, reading the article, you see that aside from 1 director who resigned, all the other directors, including the leaker, have stayed on board! In other words, the guys whose privacy was invaded didn't care. It was done to them, and their response was to keep serving.
So why care on their behalf? These walking lobotomies need to stand up for themselves.
My Greasemonkey scripts for Digg &
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
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/5321034.stm
Funny. I'd call it 'lying'.
If you have to think up a euphemism for what you're doing, it's probably wrong.
Unless it's funny, like 'bumping uglies' or 'dropping the kids off at the pool'
What's the frequency, Kenneth?
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?
If Patricia Dunn spies on her employees like this, how can I trust her enough to be a customer of HP?
If they were looking at company issued phones, computers, or other equiptment I would say that is fair game. When they pretend they are you and get information from services providers where you pay the bill they have crossed the line. I was shopping for a new laptop and HP is now out of contention.
The only way this can be corrected is if HP cans Patricia Dunn ASAP. Tom Perkins should be running HP. He actually has a moral compass and stands by what he thinks is right.
Ninjas don't carry tic tacs
I don't know if there's a legal precedent for email, but I do know that you usually sign an agreement stating that the corporation can watch anything/everything you do using their workstations, telephones, email servers, etc, etc.
Keep in mind though, that response is more relevant in the context of an employer-employee relationship. Board of Directors are not "necessarily" employees of the company. Their election by the shareholders binds them to the company, what the company can do with them is limited, and I certainly would think the company could not dictate an agreement to them to do X or Y. The Directors have an obligation to the shareholders, not to the "company."
...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.
More like it won't make any difference, though not for the obvious extrapolation that everyone will make at that phrase. It's that regardless of which gender you favour, there'll be a certain _kind_ of person who makes it to the top. It's not whether most men are better or most women are better, it's that those who end up at the top will _not_ actually be representative of the majority of men or women anyway.
The world today, at least the western world (though I wouldn't be surprised if other parts too) has a very different minority that's disproportionately represented at the top: the sociopaths. It's not even much of a surprise. In a society and culture where we expect -- and indeed _demand_ -- sociopathic behaviour from corporations and politicians, the ones that make it to the top are those who can promise just that: to behave like a sociopath, and take decisions without letting emotions or empathy get in the way. And there are reasons too, such as their being natural actors and having no loyalty except to themselves. So they can put up an outstanding show for the boss and get a promotion, while you're busy doing actual work.
The thing is, what they do has no resemblance with what Joe Average and Jane Housewife does. Only about 1% of the population scores clean over 30 on an APD (Antisocial Personality Disorder = sociopathy/psychopathy) test. We're talking the creme de la creme, the elite among the elite. (To put it into perspective, the average Joe or Jane have maybe 1 confirmed trait or spurious minor manifestations of 2-3, and even those are often just bad habits or benign when they're not accompanied by others.) They're people who are actually more anti-social (in the medical sense) than the hardened criminals in a prison (who tend to average somewhere in the 20's), yet are smart enough to not end up in prison. You can't really look at what a sociopath does and extrapolate it at what the average man or woman would do, nor viceversa.
They're not only a minority, but they don't even function mentally in the same way as you do. Even if a lot of common people do get caught in an admiration of sociopaths and their methods, in practice they couldn't do the same things. They're just not wired the same way.
I.e., what I'm saying is that you can't look at this case and think she's representative for women as a whole. And conversely, those who think that "having women in power would make for a kinder, gentler world" make the wrong extrapolation in the other direction. They look at some of the average women around them and think, basically, "hey, I bet if she was a CEO/Chairman/President/whatever, it would be a nicer world." Well, maybe it even would, except it won't those who end up in position of power.
Just changing the genre stereotype won't make the world any better, as long as the same kind people are left to run the show. What can change the world is (A) recognizing these people for what they are, and (B) having enough checks and safeguards so they can't run amok and cause major damage.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
As a former employee of Pattie Dunn when she worked at Wells Fargo Nikko Investment Advisors which became Barclays Global Investors, I always found Pattie to be a person who really cared about her employees and their personal lives. She was always approachable, listened to your concerns no matter how high or low you were in her chain of command, and without sounding too sexist, had a great smile, a charming personality, and was the easiest on the eyes boss I've ever had. I can only imagine what HP has put her through to cause such a change in her attitudes. On the other hand, perhaps this is an example of what has happened to America in general. "Truly a sight to behold. The man, beaten. The once great champ, now a study in moppishness. No longer the victory hungry stallion we've raced so many times before. But a pathetic, washed-up aged ex-champion. " (obscure Better Off Dead quote :) )
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
Coming from someone who was ripping HP up and down at the time for their moronic behavior, I can say three things with authority. First, I had sources on that level. Second, they didn't get my sources, not even close. Several witchhunters resigned and/or were canned while looking for Inq sources, but as far as I am aware, they did not find a single one, teh fewls. Third, my sources are a lot smarter than Mr Keyworth or Ms Dunn.
The sad part is, they will probably get away with all of this. The sadder part is they are looking in the wrong place. As a member of that nebulous group know as 'the press', I can say that people speak out and leak when things are going badly, wrong, and management has their heads stuck up their collective asses. Rather than fixing the problem, they assign blame.
In any case, I should drop my guys a line and have a laugh.
-Charlie
Short sell! Short sell!!! ...if only you packaged it up in an animated gif, and flashed it every 17 seconds...
"If anything can go wrong, it will." - Murphy
However, she is easily indictable and her imprisonment will serve as a fine example for others of her ilk who doubtless think likewise.
As I was saying in another post, the fallacy there is assuming that it would be the Jane Average that ends up in those positions of power. Except those who end up at the top, male or female alike, are the kind that aren't representative of the John Does and Jane Averages that make up the rest of the population. But that goes the other way too: comparing Stevens to Clinton doesn't really say anything about comparing men to women in general.
I don't know if men as a whole are better or women as a whole are better (probably neither is better), but comparing the sociopaths at the top won't tell us anything about that. The ones at the top will be the ones who _don't_ actually have the instincts/reflexes/education/etc associated with being either the average man or the average woman. You won't find any maternal or paternal instincts there, just people whose only loyalty is to themselves and care less about everyone else than you'd care about the NPCs in a computer game. You won't find any inherent adherence to either male or female hierarchy/clique/whatever dynamics and mechanisms, either, but at most a determination to mis-use and abuse those to one's own interests. Etc. Anything that you might think of as an inherent trait of either males or females in the average people around you, at that level you won't find people actually displaying either. They may fake it, they may use it to push your buttons, but essentially both are a category of their own that's neither male nor female.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
"Keyworth was asked to resign but has refused to do so. HP said it will not renominate him to its xxx-member board."
Just where are HP getting their board members?
Intron: the portion of DNA which expresses nothing useful.
In California, where HP is headquartered, it is a crime to obtain labor through "fraudulent representation or pretense" is guilty just as if they had stolen services with similar value (California Penal Code 532). By representing themselves as the customers of the phone company whose records were requested, they obtained the labor of customer service staff under false pretense.
It is likewise criminal, in California, to willfully obtain "personal identifying information" (including, among many other thingsother things, name, address, telephone number, place of employment, or social security number) of another and then use that information for any unlawful purpose, including "to obtain, or attempt to obtain, credit, goods, services, or medical information" (Penal Code 530.5, emphasis added), without the consent of the person whose information was used. Here, they used several pieces of personal information concerning the directors targetted to obtain services from people with whom those directors did business, and did so without the directors consent.
So to say there is no law which makes it illegal to use someone else's personal information to enable yourself to impersonate that person to get someone to give you information is, well, not exactly true, even outside of banking information.
"Dude, don't you hate it when you forget to check "Post Anonymously" box?"
Not at all. They know who I am, and if they had a shred of evidence that I did anything wrong, they would have sued me long ago. I post everything with my name attached, and with my email on it where applicable. I tried calling HP and talking to them several times, but they did not return my calls. I did leave all my contact info, and have done so numerous times at trade shows. If you don't do anything illegal, you don't have to hide behind anonymity.
That said, I did not do anything wrong, have never signed an NDA with HP, or agreed to anything of the sort. On top of that I scrub my emails religiously and regularly so if they send me paperwork, they will get nothing because I have nothing. That said, I have looked for the names of the people I wanted to talk to, and I don't have them any more. Sad, a quote on the Inq now would have been quite topical. Scrubbing mail is a double edged sword.
Either way, I am not worried at all, what are they going to do call up my ISP and pretend they are me to get my records? That would be flat out illegal, and they would never do such a thing.
-Charlie
Well, since bus drivers and construction workers (and, yes, software engineers) have to take invasive tests (I had to pee in a cup ... kinda irritated me at the time but I wanted the job and they didn't require any kind of non-compete agreement so I figured it was a reasonable tradeoff) of one sort or another in order to obtain work, I don't see any reason why it shouldn't be a requirement for corporate upper management to have to take an APD test. At the very least, they should have to take something like the old MMPI so that we have at least some idea if they are complete whackjobs or not.
... that's rather private data and isn't something that most people would want available to anyone, but if you're not willing to submit to such a test, maybe you shouldn't be allowed to run a major corporation.
I'm not saying that should result in their not being hired for such positions: that would depend upon an individual corporation's policies. But if the results of such testing were required to be a matter of public record, it would be the first thing a potential investor would examine. It would also discourage other sociopaths from even applying for such positions: the last thing a true sociopath wants is to be unmasked. Yes, I know
Now, granted, there are those that will complain that such testing and publication would be grossly unfair and violate various civil liberties and all that. And I suppose they'll be right in that: I'm not an attorney so I have no idea of what laws such testing would run afoul. But the unfortunately reality is that many of these individuals absolutely cannot be trusted and some means of early detection needs to be put in place. It really doesn't help when the Ken Lays and Bernie Ebbers and others like them are eventually caught (if they are ever caught) because by then the damage has been done, people have been hurt. Look at what Ms. Fiorina accomplished in just a few short years, and managed to walk away from scot-free. It's also obvious that stringing a few of them up hasn't had the desired deterrent effect either. And why should it? If you feel that you're above the law you're not going to let the law get in your way.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
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.
Normally when I comment in relation to HP (I'm an employee) I stay anonymous and just correct facts. ACs tend to get modded down but hey, at least that way I don't get my posts interpreted simply by what the reader thinks of HP. But typically the topic is "Alpha vs. Itanium" or somesuch where no matter anyone's claims to knowing the one shining truth, it comes down to matters of opinion (hey, I'm a software guy, what would I know...).
But this situation is different. It's truly embarassing and I hope Dunn suffers in consequence. Talking to the press is bad. Whether or not you agree, that was what the board decided. Any board member who disagrees should stand up and be counted or have the guts to resign. I get paid good money, have access to confidential information, and would like to think I have the standards to quit rather than get petty ego-boosting revenge by talking to the press. Whistle blowing bad business practice etc is noble. Leaking product roadmaps etc is just masturbating.
So Keyworth deserves to leave the board. His actions, however, just don't compare to Dunn invading the private lives of her colleagues.
HP has done a lot and does a lot to be proud of. Every once and a while a salesperson does a stupid thing or a business decision is "sub-optimal", but for instance we haven't joined the ranks of the many tech companies playing silly buggers with the financials. We've been getting our act together over the past year and a lot of us are hopeful we will become a great company again.
Then last thing before I go to bed (I'm in the UK), I hear that the board doesn't even understand that lying to get an innocent person's personal information is a bad thing. I don't care whether it's illegal or not. It's a shit thing to do. And I hate going to bed pissed off.
There's one combination of things that always makes me angry. First, acting in a clearly "bad" way - whether that's illegal, unethical, plain rude, whatever. Second, when it's also a stupid thing. What do we get for outing the leak? Not much (but there can be minor advantages to the competition being in the dark for a few months, trust me). Will the way we've behaved come to light? Of course - look at Tom Perkins letters, this eventually becomes a matter of public record via the SEC for fuck's sake! Will it be embarassing if a customer brings it up? Yes, perhaps with a financial impact, and with the story on e.g. front webpage BBC, everyone's going to know about it.
I hope they ask her to resign.
Here's a counter to the examples we so often see of businessmen doing the wrong thing. You don't often hear about people in business doing the right thing, because that seldom makes a juicy story. In business, you have to make ethical decisions all the time. It's nice to see a news story that sheds some light on one of those decisions properly decided.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ