HP's Dunn as Newsweek Cover Girl

theodp writes "In The Boss Who Spied on Her Board, Newsweek likens HP Chairwoman Pattie Dunn's attempts to escape culpability with her I-knew-nothing defense to both a head of state, who wants 'plausible deniability' while ordering an assassination plot, and to Henry II, who had the Archbishop of Canterbury removed by simply muttering 'Will no one rid me of this troublesome priest?' in front of his knights."

Comments

When in Rome, etc.

[ScentCone]

This is slashdot. Please do not cite movie-style 'head of state asks-without-asking for an assination mission' analogies, or refer to centuries-old British church smack-downs. If you can't describe this in terms of chair throwing, iPod-killing, or some form of infringement, the message is lost.

Re:When in Rome, etc.

[CRCulver]

...or refer to centuries-old British church smack-downs.

The killing of Thomas Becket is retold in T.S. Eliot's first play Murder in the Cathedral . Granted, such literature is far removed from iPods and knocking on Microsoft, but the play is performed--and assigned in college lit classes--often enough that I imagine many people will know something of that historical event.

Re:When in Rome, etc.

[MrShaggy]

Would this be ok? Its almost when Kirk thinks that he is going to duel spock over some vulcan ass.

Re:When in Rome, etc.

[HerrEkberg]

Will no one rid me of this troublesome chair?

Re:When in Rome, etc.

[__aaclcg7560]

Dude, haul out your own chair. The recycling bin is around the corner.

Re:When in Rome, etc.

[Stormwatch]

Will no one rid me of this troublesome chair?

Ballmer, is that you?!

Re:When in Rome, etc.

[stefanlasiewski]

"Whooooooooooooo! Chairvelopers! Chairvelopers! Chairvelopers! Chairvelopers! Whooooooooooooo!"

Complete with sweaty armpits.

Re:When in Rome, etc.

[zamboni1138]

So you did watch Clear and Present Danger last night?

Re:When in Rome, etc.

[Artifakt]

And the American prosecuters at Nuremburg referred to the "troublesome priest" phrase repeatedly in trying the Nazi war criminals, and so people should encounter it not just in lit or ancient history but in modern history, philosophy or ethics. It's actually pretty common, and if you didn't hear it in such classes, you can safely assume you didn't get your money's worth on college. (If you didn't have to take ANY of those classes, congratulations on your Engineering/CS degree, and I hope you got some of this sort of thing on your own.). Many people know that "I was just following orders" is considered a pretty crappy excuse, but many of them don't understand the other half of that is "My underlings misinterpreted my orders.", and it is equally inexcusable.
      Note: I have not compared HP's management to the Nazis, except in that some people seem to be adopting the same "They misinterpreted me/I was just following orders" BS when they got caught at something. Anyone who thinks I just Godwinned the thread does not understand Godwin, but if you want to mod me down anyway, go right ahead.

Re:When in Rome, etc.

[pathological liar]

I'm going to f---ing bury that thing, I have done it before, and I will do it again.

I'm going to f---ing kill that chair.

Re:When in Rome, etc.

[twiddlingbits]

Well said, in fact under the UCMJ a soldier MUST disobey an illegal order (aka shoot the prisoners). So even in the Military following orders in NO EXCUSE.

Re:When in Rome, etc.

[fishbowl]

>Well said, in fact under the UCMJ a soldier MUST disobey an illegal order (aka shoot the prisoners).

I've known former soldiers who have reported different experiences with this. Some, including an officer who had graduated from the US Military Academy, told me about drills that were more-or-less routine, where illegal orders would be given (with relatively mundane consequences) and if the cadet followed the order, he would have faile the test and would be disciplined for it.

Others have told me that the actual situation is that you follow orders, period, without question.
So I basically have an artillery man in one ear with one story, and a commissioned officer in the other ear, with a completely different story.

I would expect the latter to be the more common case. The idea of refusing to follow an order certainly does not occur to the typical enlisted man, who would consider the consequences to be too severe to even entertain the notion, but then, it's not a situation the average enlisted man encounters anyway, My Lai's and Hadithas being vanishingly rare.

Re:When in Rome, etc.

[SageMusings]

I would like to respond to this:

I spent 20 years in the Marines. If an enlisted man did refuse an illegal, direct order from a superior officer, the chances are about 95% he would still go to jail, even if false charges for another crime had to fabricated. The officer might face a 20% chance of incarceration himself or letter of reprimand. Rest assured, however, the enlisted man would suffer more. The military is not about to let enlisted men think they can get away with evaluating every order they receive. The drill is to obey without hesitation.

I know the Marine Corps would rather be expedient than correct, especially in combat. The world is not fair, the military less so. We all deal with it.

Re:When in Rome, etc.

[twiddlingbits]

I was not referring to JUST ANY ORDER. You are told by your CO to shoot innocent civilians or to steal or to rape as "payback". Do you follow the orders and let the Court Martial sort it out??? Last I looked the only penalty for Murder as a Soldier is Death.

Re:When in Rome, etc.

[morie]

But it can be seen on TV...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/blackadder/epguide/one _archbishop.shtml

Re:When in Rome, etc.

[gidds]

Well, quite. It's even mentioned (and replayed) in the first Blackadder series.

Re:When in Rome, etc.

[Rakarra]

Will no one rid me of this troublesome chair?

One of Thrall's more famous lines..

Ugh.

[writermike]

Ugh. Too many words. It's much easier for me to buy another brand until this calms down.

But interested enough to post?

[EmbeddedJanitor]

The real sadness in all this is that HP started off as an icon of geekdom, "The American Way", and many other pure and virtuous themes. Since then it has been Carley'ed and generally fucked over in many ways.

At one stage, HP was "the best". They made the best calculators, best test equipment, best everything they touched. Their slide probably started with getting into the commodity PC industry (PCs and printers).

Re:But interested enough to post?

[Anonymous Coward]

"The real sadness in all this is that HP started off as an icon of geekdom, "The American Way", and many other pure and virtuous themes."

So did Google.
So did Apple.

Need I continue?

It doesn't matter what you call it, the rotten stink of corruption is ubiquitous and certain to touch all our tech and media companies
eventually. The only solution is not to build attachments or loyalties in the first place. Reject all forms of brand identification and
have the courage to try new products and tools. When they start out with promises of "Do no evil" and "We are your friends" then sure, use their
services and products. As soon as they make the first mistake show no mercy. Dump them, move on and tell all your freinds to avoid them too.
It's like an unfaithful bitch, only a stupid or insecure person makes excuses for them and gives another chance. There is no room for sentimentality
or loyalty in todays business world. HP now are just another name on the scrapheap of old "tried but failed" companies along with Sony, Apple, Google, SCO, AT&T... these companies can never mend their corrupted reputations, they are walking dead, but there are always new players and fresh blood to put your money behind.

Re:But interested enough to post?

[javakah]

Hmm, look at it this way: Spying to find out who other people are calling, and justifying it by not having actually listened to the phone calls. Sound familiar? Sound like the logic of a certain President? Sadly, this actually is "The American Way" now.

Re:But interested enough to post?

[bealzabobs_youruncle]

You are that guy at work everyone avoids, aren't ya'?

Re:But interested enough to post?

[Millenniumman]

In what world are Sony, Apple, and Google "walking dead"?

Re:But interested enough to post?

[keesh]

Whereas now, they're behaving in the "American Way" by doing anything they think they can get away with, screwing over customers and replacing innovation with corporate politics.

Re:But interested enough to post?

[the_humeister]

Apparently the "soul" of HP left and now wants to be called "Agilent"

Re:But interested enough to post?

[Achromatic1978]

Reject all forms of brand identification and have the courage to try new products and tools. When they start out with promises of "Do no evil" and "We are your friends" then sure, use their services and products. As soon as they make the first mistake show no mercy. Dump them, move on and tell all your freinds to avoid them too. It's like an unfaithful bitch, only a stupid or insecure person makes excuses for them and gives another chance.

"Stay tuned! In our next thrilling installment, Anonymous Cowards completes his transformation into Tyler Durden!"

Re:But interested enough to post?

[Ingolfke]

I'm going to try again:

The real sadness in all this is that HP started off as an icon of geekdom, "The American Way", and many other pure and virtuous themes.

When was this exactly? This sounds like an idealized romanticized view of someone who doesn't actually know what they're talking about. Sure HP has made great products, but "icon of geekdom"... that sounds like either misplaced affection or overzealous fanboism to me.

Since then it has been Carley'ed and generally fucked over in many ways.

Again... since when? "Carley'ed". What's that mean? Carley's gone last I checked. HP's innovating, HP's selling products that work and that people and businesses want... "fucked up?" again you're overexagerating b/c you have some ridiculously romantic view of how things once were... and no idea of what is today.

At one stage, HP was "the best". They made the best calculators, best test equipment, best everything they touched. Their slide probably started with getting into the commodity PC industry (PCs and printers).

Really? TI seemed to have some kick-ass calculators... I don't know who hands out awards for "the best" calculators but I seem to remember TI was the standard for calculus+ classes at the University I attended. Best test equipment... maybe, but I thought HP was a computer company... so geeks are freaking out about test equipment. "Best everything they touched"... again with your hyperbole. You're exagerating... and I'm guessing it's because you don't know what you're talking about. "Commodity PCs and Printers"... HP invented the fucking laser jet printer. The laser jet, the desk jet... those fuckers sell like hotcakes. HP owns the market and they keep innovating. Waht are you smoking?

I think this entire line of thinking is unsubstantiated... it's that sort of reality that exists in /. where super nerds imagine that truth and their idealistic fiction are the same thing. Reality says that HP is a good company that makes good products and that their are great competitors our there who also make good products and you get to choose. Stop idealizing periods that never actually existed, stop glorifying a past you didn't experience in its fullness... accept today and understand it... but don't delude yourself.

Re:But interested enough to post?

[Epsillon]

HP invented the fucking laser jet printer.

Really? So Gary Starkweather employed a dwarf with very fast drawing skills and very neat handwriting to cram into that very first laser photolithography box, then? You learn something new every day. No wonder the darned things were so expensive at first.

LaserJet is a trademark. Laser printers were invented by Xerox as a natural progression of their Xerographic photolithography process. In fact, Xerox and IBM beat HP to market. There's an MIT page here that confirms this, and you can check out the Wikipedia page here for a more in-depth discussion.

Oh, wait, I see nothing about Xerox's machine fornicating. Perhaps you are right...

Re:But interested enough to post?

[SillyNickName4me]

First you said The only solution is not to build attachments or loyalties in the first place.

Then you said As soon as they make the first mistake show no mercy. Dump them, move on and tell all your freinds to avoid them too.

A negative attachment is still an attachment, so your second statement seems to contradict yor first.

If you don't want brand loyality, use the product when it is good, don't use it when it is bad.

Re:But interested enough to post?

[sbryant]

HP's innovating, HP's selling products that work and that people and businesses want...

What on earth is it you think that HP is currently innovating?

They don't do medical equipment anymore (that part now belongs to Philips). They don't do Test & Measurement or components either (see Agilent).

HP used to make some extremely good printers, which were head-and-shoulders above others in the field (I'm talking about the LJ 4/5 era), but that's not true for their current printers. HP is certainly not the clear market leader it used to be. The technology they invented was excellent, and the printers today still benefit from that, but it seems to me that instead of real innovation now, they are more interested in finding ways of stopping people using ink from other manufacturers, so they can sell their own at horrendous prices. Why does HP's ink cost more than Dom Perignon champagne?

The same goes for PA-RISC, which was a strong architecture at the time. I see no advantage to buying an Itanium system now though. I wouldn't say that HP were the best at everything, but they definately had a significant edge; they don't have that anymore.

HP took the innovation out of the company and put it in their logo. I was there - I saw it with my own eyes. They don't do anywhere near as much innovation as they used to. It's a shame.

Reality says that HP is a good company that makes good products

You've missed what it is that is upsetting people. They used to make most excellent products; now they're only good. That's a big step backwards.

Back to the current story: anyone who worked at HP in the 80s and early 90s will know what an amazing corporate culture it had. This current scandal is yet another sign that HP has become the thing that Bill and Dave wanted to get away from. The old HP is dead, and what you see here is people in mourning.

-- Steve

Re:But interested enough to post?

[joebob2000]

TI calculators being the equal or superior of HP is a very recent thing. HP was first with personal calculators and was the best for decades. HP35 HP65 HP41. These were the "personal computers" engineers used daily before Apple, etc. were around. Incidentally, TI could only be better than HP once PCs took over the professional engineering computing market and off-the-shelf embedded microcontrollers got so good that they beat the performance of the last of HP's custom calculator ASICs.

HP may be only a computer company now, but HP started out as a test equipment company back in the 30s. Computers (custom designed computers, not Intel reference designs with a HP logo) came later and were just one of many products HP produced. Besides electronic test gear, they made scientific gear like mass Spectrometers, EKGs, and much more. HP gear was never cheap, but it had ultimate performance, was built like a tank, and lasted forever. Actually it is lasting so long, you can find old test gear inside pretty much every electronics lab in America, including mine.

Test/med/science part was spun off as Agilent, the HP name was kept for the PC-clone boxes that break, and the printers that run out of ink faster and faster. Even recent Agilent test gear is apparently not at the same level of engineering as the old stuff. There are stories of lab-grade spectrum analysers breaking after a few years and inadequate replacement part stock. Something to do with thoughtlessly coded software wearing out relays after only a year or five. These instruments can easily cost $50,000 or more, so companies expect more than they do from their Dell.

Your post indicates that HP's heyday occured before your time. Those of us who remember parts of that time are not "glorifying the past", we are simply remembering something that happened before you were around to tell us how wrong we are. Try to be understanding of some of us older (over 30) folks who have not yet had the common decency to die off yet.

Re:But interested enough to post?

[the donner party]

HP invented the ink jet. That was back in the early 1980's when HP still was an innovative engineering company. However, all the early Laser Jets were based on a Canon print engine. Check out wikipedia, and if you don't believe that, here's an article on the HP site..

Re:But interested enough to post?

[x-vere]

... And now I must rest. This verbal ass kicking has made me tired.

Re:But interested enough to post?

[drinkypoo]

you're just taking the /.-line from about 2002 and regurgitating it here like it's a valid and serious position.

Actually you're quite wrong. A lot of HP products have gone sharply downhill and the overall HP philosophy followed suit, all around the same time. And yes, HP calculators may be the best, but calculators in general have lost some of their favor to larger devices with more functionality...

But anyway, consider HP laser printers. They have done a zillion things to make more big chunks of money at the expense of the customer. Remember when you could get a duplex module for just about any HP printer? Printers now come in duplex and non-duplex versions and you can't add duplex to printers. This means that they sell more duplex units, because they're sold to people who don't really need them, but buy them because they're afraid that they will, and more printers, because people who buy a non-duplex printer now have to buy a new printer if they find they need duplex support. And I won't even talk about the inkjet cartridge thing, since Canon is the only company that's not a bastard about it.

HP support has also gone straight to hell.

HP's products HAVE gone downhill. Period. Accept it. It happens to just about everyone.

Re:limelight dims

[__aaclcg7560]

I don't think it's a gender issue. They don't teach falling-down-on-your-own-sword in the business schools anymore. These days you get a brownie point for blaming the next guy/gal over and/or the news media. Taking personal responsibiity is so old school.

Re:limelight dims

[Denis The SQL Menace]

The board meeting is today, I predict she will step down after they ask her to "Dunn has no plans to step down but would do so if asked by the board, according to HP spokesman Ryan Donovan. HP's board plans to meet Sunday, he added."

My 2 cents as an impartial observer...

[Anonymous Coward]

What the hell is Liza Minnelli doing in a story about HP?

Re:My 2 cents as an impartial observer...

[Otter]

That was my first thought too, upon reading the MSNBC link.

My second thought, after reading the first paragraph, was that HP is lucky the story didn't turn out to be "HP Director Decapitates Chairman With Radio-Controlled Helicopter".

Re:limelight dims

[icepick72]

I understand your point. I don't take issue with falling down on your own sword. However I'm considering the after-effects of such a stunt. I'm making the point I think there is less love for the fallen in this circumstance because of a gender issue. The HP company itself seems to be old-school enough that such a gender issue could more easily arise. BTW, I'm not a woman, just a guy making what I think is an observation.

Re:msnbc article not compatible with Firefox

[Pink Tinkletini]

Looks fine here in Safari. Maybe it's time for you to upgrade.

Hey

[Anonymous Coward]

Does anybody have a stream of today's emergency board meeting?

The equipment is in place, isn't it?

Re:Hey

[benplaut]

Yes, it's in place...
and it's bulletproof, too! http://h71028.www7.hp.com/ERC/cache/49205-0-0-225- 121.aspx?bodycontentparams=320065-0-0-0-121&ERL=tr ue

No-need-to-click-next-7-times-version

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14736379/site/newsweek /print/1/displaymode/1098/

Re:limelight dims

[springbox]

Honestly from what I've seen of this, I think women in responsible positions are given a tougher time then men.

What this person did is just totally inexcusable and they came out looking like a total dimwit on top of it. Who cares about their sex? What this person did was WRONG and they deserved to be given a hard time. If a man (and again, why does it matter) did the same thing I can guarantee that people aren't going to hesitate to criticize him. So maybe the question you should ask is given two people of different sexes (hypothetically) who commit the exact same crime under the same circumstances, why should we treat them differently?

Turbulent

[trewornan]

If you're going to quote someone at least get it right, Beckett was a "turbulent" priest not a "troublesome" one.

Re:Turbulent

[trewornan]

Sorry, I'm not American so it didn't occur to me that school-kid knowledge of history would be regarded as elitism.

Re:Turbulent

[pmc]

The quote is also a link, that goes to a page, that does not have the quote on it. To correct the stunningly wrong submission is not elitist any more than tidying up garbage is elitist.

Re:Turbulent

[Daetrin]

Sorry, I'm not American so it didn't occur to me that school-kid knowledge of history would be regarded as elitism.

Funny, i've always heard it as "will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest," although admitedly neither i nor i expect any other american actually learned about it in school as a child, so it is most certainly _not_ "school-kid knowledge of history" for everyone. Secondly, if you want people to listen to you you might want to adopt a slightly less agressive tone. "If you're going to quote someone at least get it right" is much more likely to be taken as elitism than a phrase like "i was told the original quote was" or something along those lines.

And lastly, before you chastise someone else for getting the quote wrong, make sure you yourself have got it right. Wikipedia certainly isn't infallible, but their page on Thomas Becket says it was "passionate words from the angry king" and then lists several phrases that were reputedly used, so no one is really sure what the exact utterance was to begin with. Not to mention the fact that this was during the period when middle english was being spolen and what he said probably only had a passing relationship with a modern english interpretation of the same words. I therefore strongly suspect that _all_ of us are wrong, or all of us are right, depending on how you choose to look at it. It seems rather unlikely however that you can conclusively proove you are more correct than the person you corrected.

Re:Turbulent

[Anonymous Coward]

Sources disagree as to what Henry II said to make a group of knights think that killing Thomas Becket was something their king was ordering them to do. There seem to be a number of popular variations, including "turbulent," "troublesome," "meddlesome," "low-born," and a bunch of statements which are nothing like the most common form. Given the lack of reliable contemporary accounts, along with the tendency following the incident to lionize Becket and blame Henry for the whole thing, any quote of what Henry II said to set those knight dudes off must be considered apocryphal.

Re:Turbulent

[Anonymous Coward]

I think whatever words he said he would have said them in French. 1066 and all that...

Re:Turbulent

[trewornan]

Wikipedia ... lists several phrases that were reputedly used, so no one is really sure what the exact utterance was to begin with.

You seem to be right - I was just going on what I was taught in school and didn't realise it was a matter of debate. Having said that, I still think you'll find "turbulent priest" is the generally accepted version.

Re:Turbulent

[SirSlud]

First of all, it comes as no surprise to me that there is some debate as to the actual phrase. You should be really really careful when you correct somebody over a trivial matter because more often than not, you're running headlong into a tangential nerd-cliff where everybody stops looking at the forest and starts arguing over one leaf on one tree in that forest.

Nobody ever said Let them eat cake either, but correcting somebody when they utter those words to illustrate a point is about as pedantic as you can be. If the meaning of the phrase is retained, and the message is succinctly conveyed, what the hell is so important about the words unless you're quoting them with the actual intention of accurate archival?

Re:Turbulent

[Daetrin]

I think whatever words he said he would have said them in French. 1066 and all that...

Uh, yes, 1066 and all that, so why do you say in French? "Middle English is the name given by historical linguistics to the diverse forms of the English language spoken between the Norman invasion of 1066 and the mid-to-late 15th century." Thomas Becket died on December 29, 1170, well into the middle english period.

Re:Turbulent

[Bodrius]

Maybe he said that because Norman kings would be more likely to speak French/Anglo-Norman in court rather than the language (old english) they were actively replacing in government and law. It being 1066 and all that.

In terms of eras and periods, it is very rare that someone sends a memo to let everyone know that, say, they should stop reading Latin and start looting and rioting because the Dark Ages just began.

Re:Turbulent

[dbIII]

Not to mention the fact that this was during the period when middle english was being spolen

I suggest you read something in middle english sometime - apart from the spelling and a few words having slightly different meanings it really is very easy for a modern english speaker. I studied engineering and not a single english literature subject and didn't find Canturbury Tales difficult to read - I read it while commuting on the train for a couple of weeks.

Re:Turbulent

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

Having said that, I still think you'll find "turbulent priest" is the generally accepted version.

Googlefight says you are right. 17.5K hits vs only 866 hits.

However, "Meddelsome Priest" comes in at a close second with 13.4K.

Re:Turbulent

[risinganger]

Maybe it was troublesome but the simple and obvious point of the parent stands - the quote used in the link is not contained within the text at the link. If I offer you a link labled ATI graphics card and it takes you to NVIDIA what would you say? Somehow I don't think it would be "well they're all doing the same job" Anyway this is all moot. As this is slashdot any quote such as this is not allowed to come from wikipedia when there is a perfectly viable source. Blackadder :)

Re:Turbulent

[Anonymous Coward]

It's easy to forget that while Henri was king of England, he was also king of a vast continental empire consisting of much of modern day France which the plantagenets viewed as more important than the bit of land across the English channel. Because of this he was born in (modern-day)France, didn't visit England until he was 16 and didn't spend any appreciable time there until he was 20. I'd say it was a fair bet he used French when cussing the clergy...

Re:Turbulent

[Daetrin]

"Because of this he was born in (modern-day)France, didn't visit England until he was 16 and didn't spend any appreciable time there until he was 20. I'd say it was a fair bet he used French when cussing the clergy..."

Was it part of France at the time? Or was it part of Normandy? And given that he was Duke of Normandy as well as King of England it seems quite likely that he spoke Anglo-Norman and Middle English as well as Old French. Which he would prefer for cussing is open for debate (Anglo-Norman was after all the "courtly" language in England and Middle English the "common" lanaguage,) as is which he would used when talking to his English knights.

But in any case, whichever of the three it was, clearly the words that were said were nothing like the words we would use to express a similar sentiment today.

Re:Turbulent

[PMuse]

If we've descended to using Ask the Audience to decide the proper translation of a 800-year-old quote, the intent of which was apparently in doubt from the moment it was uttered, then we are truly lost.

Re:Turbulent

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

If we've descended to using Ask the Audience to decide the proper translation of a 800-year-old quote, the intent of which was apparently in doubt from the moment it was uttered, then we are truly lost.

Do you have a better definition of "generally accepted?"

Re:Turbulent

[PMuse]

Not really, no. I would suggest that what we're trying to do is be "right". Barring a reliable transcript or a time machine, the best we can do as to this fact is to try to approximate "right". One approximation of "right" is "generally accepted"; it's not too bad an approximation. "Generally accepted by people whose opinion is worth hearing" is a somewhat better approximation.

The criteria that make a person's opinion "worth hearing" are not, of course, "generally accepted".

Nothing new here.

[Anonymous Coward]

Back in the 1960s a friend's dad got a job as head of an important government office. The people working for him were at the director level so the case is somewhat similar. Everyone had an intercom on their desks so they could do things like calling their secretaries in to take dictation etc. Buddy's dad found that the intercoms were wired so his predecessor could listen in to whatever was happening in any of the other offices. It wasn't an accident, they were deliberately wired the way they were. To his credit, he had them reverted to normal operation.

Powerful people got where they are by knowing what is going on around them. There are other powerful people trying to subvert them and get their jobs. Machiavelli described the process and nothing has changed since then. They used to use spies. Now they use wiretaps.

Re:limelight dims

[teflaime]

So, you think men are more likely to get away with crime, eh? Or is it just that women are worse criminals?

I'm dubious about the press coverage

[Anonymous Coward]

Something really smells about the press coverage on this. It all seems to pain Perkins as such a good, likeable, ethical person who resigned from the board. And yet, last week I saw a single quote from Dunn which stated that Perkins played a key role in starting this investigation. Curiously, I don't see this statement repeated in other press coverage. But it is extremely telling, if true.

I'm not defending Dunn here. I'm just saying to take any of this "news" which is so glowing about Perkins with a large grain of salt. Perkins is quite powerful in Silicon Valley. And all of this just smells of his propaganda, designed to paint him in the best light possible.

Re:I'm dubious about the press coverage

[mabhatter654]

perkins was on the board in charge of overseeing ethics issues for board members. Dunn, the legal consul, and HP investigators went "over his head" to rat out the leaker, because bringing it up to the full board and board's overseers wasn't working. So they called in a private firm.. and the private firm called in the "rats" to dig up dirt. It's no different that what workman's comp, insurance fraud, bill collectors, etc. investigators do on a daily basis. It's a fine line to walk but the line is more "grey" for private individuals than for law enforcement. It's dirty, underhanded, but the guy was basicly selling secrets to see the public go his way in board discussions. The fact is that he was telling to the press, off the books... at least it's an ethics breach because it wasn't "whistleblowing" it was politics. At worst, he was leaking to the press for who knows how long and profiting from it! That's insider trading and that's ILLEGAL, and puts every board member and executive in legal jepordy.

That's what Perkins doesn't get... this needed to be quit, they needed to fire the director quietly... Because he's the head of Board ethics, he should have shut up, this directly affects him, because he was informed of the breach and wasn't effective enough to catch the culprit he could be accused of "covering" for the rogue board member. Squeal all he want's but HE should have plugged this leak.. and not left the CEO to track it back to board members.

Re:I'm dubious about the press coverage

[rking]

last week I saw a single quote from Dunn which stated that Perkins played a key role in starting this investigation. Curiously, I don't see this statement repeated in other press coverage.

I can't help wondering if the reason that you "curiously" don't see the statement is because you aren't reading the articles.

From the one we're discussing here:

Dunn insists Perkins was just as eager to learn the identity of the leaker as she was. "Tom was the most hawkish member of the board for plugging the leaks, which he thought were coming from management. He advocated the use of lie-detector tests." Perkins disagrees.

There's lots of other stuff in there from Dunn too. It really goes out of its way to be fair to both sides.
Unfortunately, Dunn's version of events is that she hired someone to obtain confidential phone records, she received and made use of the phone records but is now amazed after the event to find that they'd been unethical in getting them. Never suspected for a moment that they might have lied to get them. She really can't be that stupid. Telling her side of the story pretty much condemns her.

Re:I'm dubious about the press coverage

[sphealey]

> It's a fine line to walk but the line is more
> "grey" for private individuals than for law
> enforcement. It's dirty, underhanded, but
> the guy was basicly selling secrets to see
> the public go his way in board discussions.

For a member of a Board of Directors to talk to the press, even against the wishes of his fellow board members, is probably not illegal (consult your securities lawyer for full details), possibly not wrong in an ethical sense depending on the circumstances, and at worst can generate a civil lawsuit by the full board against the errant director. Improperly accessing personnel records, using the stolen records to impersonate another person, using the impersonation to access telephone records in violation of various telecommunications and privacy acts, and doing all these things without fully informing the BoD seems to me to be well over some fine "line".

sPh

It was theft, by the way, not "pretexting". Let's use the correct term please.

Re:I'm dubious about the press coverage

[mabhatter654]

there was no improper access of records to get 99% of the personal info.. that was on file. That's what HP gave the investigators to work on. The only infraction was the "pretexting" everything else was perfectly legal... that's why I keep saying it's a minor thing because while it makes the case, there's implicit agreement for employees to be "spied" on, yep you gave it all away when you signed you app. So if the company needs to "phreak" to access info you've already approved it's "grey".. obviously they can't ask for permission THIS time because it would impead the investigation. It's the same with insurance.. they get away with the same things because you signed up to be "spied" on if they think you're committing fraud against them. They routinely "phreak" for info... because even though you've already signed it away, they can't exactly ask for it when they thing you're lying can they?

Re:I'm dubious about the press coverage

[Capsaicin]

Unfortunately, Dunn's version of events is that she hired someone to obtain confidential phone records, she received and made use of the phone records but is now amazed after the event to find that they'd been unethical in getting them.

No, Dunn's version of events is that she told HP's General Counsels Office to investigate the matter and that she didn't know until a full month after the fateful board meeting that confidential phone records had been used, which she claims only to have found out from one of Perkins' emails.

Just because a journalist is "goes out of [his] way" to put both sides of a story doesn't mean he is actually being fair (and how fair was the previous piece)? After all we wouldn't want to loose access to that yacht we are writing a book about, would we?

Re:I'm dubious about the press coverage

[Builder]

I'm not sure where you work, but I have NEVER given permission to an employer or potential employer to investigate any of my activities outside of work.

I consent to having my computer usage and e-mails monitored, as well as all phone calls on company property recorded (FSA requirement). But I do not and never will consent to having anything outside of work investigated, monitored or data mined, implicitly or otherwise.

Please back this statement up with a contract excerpt, not because I don't believe you, but because I am very curious to see how a company would word this 'implicit agreement'.

Re:I'm dubious about the press coverage

[sphealey]

> there was no improper access of records to get 99% of
> the personal info.. that was on file. That's what HP
> gave the investigators to work on. The only infraction
> was the "pretexting" everything else was perfectly legal...
> that's why I keep saying it's a minor thing because while
> it makes the case, there's implicit agreement for
> employees to be "spied" on, yep you gave it all away when
> you signed you app. So if the company needs to "phreak" to
> access info you've already approved it's "grey"

The employer can use the HR records for any legitimate business purpose. Transferring the records to an entity which will use them to commit impersonation and theft is not a legitimate purpose and is not "grey"; it is becoming an accessory to a crime.

I doubt very much that members of the Board of Directors sign the same employment agreement that cubicle dwellers do. Legally speaking they _are_ the company; their situation is considerably from someone who is _employed by_ the company.

In any event, the California Attorney General seems to disagree with you, so I would suggest consulting with an attorney (preferably one experience in both corporate and criminal law) before acting on your "grey line" theory.

sPh

Re:I'm dubious about the press coverage

[Doctor Memory]

I have NEVER given permission to an employer or potential employer to investigate any of my activities outside of work.

Well, I'm not sure when you last changed jobs, but nowadays it's pretty common for prospective employers to run a credit check on you. The reasoning is, if you can't be organized and responsible in your personal life, how likely are you to be reliable at work? Plus everyone has heard tales of companies digging up Facebook and MySpace accounts, old Usenet posts and personal web pages. HR departments are getting bogged down with all the due diligence they're expected to do nowadays.

Re:I'm dubious about the press coverage

[Builder]

I change jobs roughly every 6 months to 2 years. My last change was 7 weeks ago. I approved the credit check, but nothing else.

My question was about the 'implicit agreement' that would allow them to get hold of my telephone records without a subpoena. Publicly available information is fair game as far as I'm concerned. Private information that requires lying to aquire is NOT fair game, and there is no implicit agreement that I have ever seen that would allow for this.

Re:Wow.

[qzulla]

My guess is ethics don't exist in your world.

Whatever.

qz

Re:Wow.

[Anonymous Coward]

The phone records of non-reporters were also alegedly targeted. Groklaw has some details.

Archbishop of Canterbury also known as...

[vleck]

The Black Adder! It's depressing that I remember more history from The Black Adder than years of public education in the UK. One of the best comedy series ever!

The war on terrorism has moved to the boardroom

[hemp]

Wire taps?? Spying on reporters? Sounds like the tactics used in the 'War On Terrorism'©.

Only disloyal HP customers or stock holders would dare questions the tactics of the Chairman Of The Board.

this is just sad

[iritant]

Having lived in the Valley for nearly 20 year I spent most of my adult life hearing the legend of Hewlett and Packard. And these two men meant a lot to the Valley. They gave generously and their foundations continue to do so. Between the Children's Wing of the Stanford Hospital to MBARI to the vintage movie in Palo Alto to public radio, these people and their money have done quite a lot of good. HP as a company back then was a fine establishment, and while today I'm sure there are fine people there, I bet both men would be rolling in their graves.

And so it's just sad to see their legacy trashed. I can't say why, but from the moment the board picked Carly Fiorina, things just went south. I am not an HP shareholder. I don't think I could be one until everyone on the current board was gone. If you are a shareholder, that should bother you, because I'm sure I'm not alone.

Were I a shareholder, I would propose that not a single member of the board stand for re-election, so that after some period of time a new board would run the company.

Re:this is just sad

[ruffnsc]

While your comments are heartfelt and understood. Your recomendation for shareholders would send the company into financial ruin. You are addressing a solution to a secondary problem. The true problem is in the dynamic of the modern corporate board. It is a group of people who usually lack the passion to drive the company for its business model. Their only drive is "usually" greed and self advancement and promotion.

Re:this is just sad

[smellsofbikes]

I *am* a shareholder, not a huge one but not a small one either, and I've been angry at them since before Carly. This is overstating the case a little, but it was a personal company, and once H & P left, it became a company company and went downhill. My dad worked there for 35 years, I worked there or for contract for them for six, many of my friends did or still do, and I think all of us have a pretty consistent view of it. When the founders had a clear goal about how they wanted the company to run, it ran that way; when people started running it who didn't have that sense of ownership they ran it in a different way and it became a lot less rewarding as a place to work.

Re:Wow.

[mabhatter654]

SHE was ethical... as much as any slashdotter that gets cheated out of money. What all the slashdot hype misses is a fortune 500 board member was leaking info to the press... even after the entire board was notified of the investigation, this board member continuined to leak confidential employee reviews, and stratagy meeting results...

We all say people like Apple should "clean their house" and stop threatening reporters and such. Well that's exactly what she did. Just like the rough slashdotter hacks to get a mailing/email address of a spammer, RIAA member, etc... It wasn't even Dunn that offically authorized it... I'm sure she just said "dig up dirt" The goal's not to bring a lawsuit against this guy, it's to get him kicked off every board he serves on! Fact of the matter is that most of the board didn't object to the investigation. The spying would have been fine for an employee alleged to do the same things.. the one resigning board member was only upset that he was not allowed to "spin" the investigation because the CEO went over the board's head because THEY weren't faithful.

This whole thing is really blown out of proportion. It's really more of a "cheating husband" thing.... people with power, position, and money, couldn't be bothered to keep the privacy of fellow board members and employees.

What else would they do?

[The Second Horseman]

Spy on a large customer that might be planning to jump to another vendor for major IT services? Spy on business partners or VARs? Flat out, the reason there are so many leaks surrounding HP is that the behavior (starting during Fiorina's reign) of the management and the board was terrible. Of course there were leaks. It's the only way to ever put the brakes on the amoral behavior of scumbags like these. The way they've been treaing people for years? Of course there are disgruntled people leaking information. They're lucky it hasn't been worse. I expect, now that Dunn has been wounded finding the leaker, the board's going to have to pull an "Old Yeller" and get her off before everyone else is contaminated. It may be too late, though.

Re:Wow.

[Anonymous Coward]

This is front page news because if the heads of other boards got the idea of trying this, then the best resources that reporters have (namely inside leaks) would dry up drier than the Sahara. So the media wants this to blow up in Dunn's face like it was the Hindenburg. (I intended the hot air puns.)

In short this matters to the media, so they want it to matter to everyone else.

Private Investigators should go to jail

[Anonymous Coward]

If private investigators are acting illegally, they are the ones whose names should be known. They are the ones who are supposed to go to jail, and lose their licenses.

Private investigators ARE licensed. They ARE supposed to act WITHIN the law. If any company chooses to hire licensed private investigators, then it's understandable that you assume this, i.e. don't necessarily need to ask questions about their precise methods.

Who were these so-called private investigators? Is this is the first time these private investigators have broken the law in order to get a paycheck? Who were their other clients prior to their HP contract? If the P.I.'s were ordered to do something illegal, why didn't they object?

Why aren't the journalists focusing on them?

Re:Private Investigators should go to jail

[DigitAl56K]

If the chirman knew of the breach of law, or instructed it directly, then surely it is they who deserve the focus.

Mr Perkins' letter here:
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/0905061hp1.ht ml .. uses the phrase "chairman's methods", and states that he attempted to notify the board of the issue several times.

Re:Private Investigators should go to jail

[fuzzybunny]

The point isn't that they "knew" about these deeds, the point is that it was more of an "oh gee, whatever shall we do, I sure wish SOMEONE would pull ALL THE STOPS to find this out wink wink nudge nudge."

The whole plausible deniability thing is what's at issue, the core of the matter being that it's just not kosher or legally justifiable to hide behind a thin veneer of supposed ignorance of your lackeys' actions. If you're in charge, you'd damn well better know what's going on during your watch.

Re:limelight dims

[klubar]

Whether legally wrong or not doesn't really matter. The standard that one's action should be judge by is "would you be ok if this decision was on the front page of the WSJ or Newsweek?" It's fortunate that the press still has some spine left and holds business leaders up to this standard.

Re:limelight dims

[cgenman]

That's funny. I always felt that Carly was cut a lot more slack than she should have been, simply because she was a woman.

Anyone underperformaning that much for that long with a plan clearly doomed to even more failures should have been canned within the first 12 months.

Last paragraph

[rking]

Right at the end of the (7 page) article:

Update: A source close to Hewlett-Packard tells Newsweek that HP's emergency board meeting was adjourned late in the afternoon on Sunday (ET) without any decision being reached on the possible resignation of Patricia Dunn as chairman. The source, who requested anonymity because of the confidentiality of internal board proceedings, said the HP board would reconvene late Monday afternoon.

So I guess they're still leaking :)

No, she was not "ethical".

[khasim]

SHE was ethical... as much as any slashdotter that gets cheated out of money.

The 2nd part of that makes no sense. And no, she was NOT ethical in this.

What all the slashdot hype misses is a fortune 500 board member was leaking info to the press... even after the entire board was notified of the investigation, this board member continuined to leak confidential employee reviews, and stratagy meeting results...

And?
Just because one person is not ethical does not make it ethical to take un-ethical actions to find that person.

We all say people like Apple should "clean their house" and stop threatening reporters and such. Well that's exactly what she did.

Nooooooo..... it seems that she STARTED investigating reporters. And people related to reporters.

It wasn't even Dunn that offically authorized it...

Drop the word "officially". Dunn authorized it. Dunn instigated it. It is Dunn's responsibility.

Fact of the matter is that most of the board didn't object to the investigation.

And so ... ?
If some other people don't object, that does not make it ethical.

The spying would have been fine for an employee alleged to do the same things.. the one resigning board member was only upset that he was not allowed to "spin" the investigation because the CEO went over the board's head because THEY weren't faithful.

No, it would not be. This type of behaviour is un-ethical no matter who the target is.

This whole thing is really blown out of proportion.

No, it has not.
I'm hoping that, because of this, the "pretexting" practice becomes a Federal Crime.

It's really more of a "cheating husband" thing.... people with power, position, and money, couldn't be bothered to keep the privacy of fellow board members and employees.

"couldn't be bothered"?
She hired a company to actively search for information.

And when she received their report, she did NOT ask how they came up with information that would not be available outside of a court order.

That is un-ethical.
She is un-ethical.

Re:msnbc article not compatible with Firefox

[MustardMan]

If I said that, I would have been modded troll. (watch this one get an offtopic).

Actually, scratch that - watch this one get a +4 funny then a -2, overrated, -2, troll, -1 offtopic, and REALLY fuck my karma.

Re:limelight dims

[EriDay]

I don't see what the big deal is. Who hasn't listened in on the people they work for?

Re:limelight dims

[Alfred, Lord Tennyso]

They don't teach falling-down-on-your-own-sword in the business schools anymore.

I'm not convinced they ever did. It may be honorable, but it's rarely profitable, and "profit" has trumped "honor" in every history book I've ever read.

Re:Illegal to pretext HP?

[vsync64]

What .. HP has had a woman CEO in thge past .. she was well respected until the HP - compaq merger didnt go as well as she ssaid it would.

According to who? You must not have every used a real HP product; say, a calculator or an oscilloscope. Carly killed off everything except the most cutthroat and low-margin industry: commodity PCs and peripherals.

Oblig. mondegreen

[ozbird]

"Dirty deeds, Dunn da chief." (Apologies to AC/DC.)

Re:limelight dims

[TheOtherChimeraTwin]

Who cares about their sex?

I do, damnit, and I want details. The least Dunn can do is be as forthcoming as Perkins. (And yes, that is the same Tom Perkins.)

Re:Wow.

[cHiphead]

Well one thing you dont seem to lack is plenty of cognitive dissonance. She was the one that ordered the investigators to proceed, the responsibility is on her for using the information they returned. I'd like to see call recordings and records between her and investigators and the space of time after they placed the calls to get the phone records illegally before and after to determins if they called her for specific authorization.

Perhaps you are an idiot or you must've voted for Bush, which explains your lack of comprehension of ethics.

Cheers.

Re:limelight dims

[Psykosys]

I also don't quite see where gender fits in to the highly critical media and corporate response to Dunn's actions. On the other hand, I doubt very much that you'd see the Slashdot headline "HP's Dunn as Newsweek Cover Boy" if she were a man...

Re:msnbc article not compatible with Firefox

[mackyrae]

It's not truncated when I look at it in Firefox. Maybe it's a difference with Windows and Linux FF? I'm using it on Linux.

Re:Wow.

[BroncoInCalifornia]

why the f*** is this front page news

This has become the media storm of the moment. There are more important things going on that are not getting much coverage. But our news media has been broken since at least O. J. Simpson.

No action today, reconvening Monday afternoon

[coyote-san]

According to an update on the original article, the board adjorned without action on Sunday. They are scheduled to meet again Monday afternoon(iirc).

Re:No action today, reconvening Monday afternoon

[twiddlingbits]

Probably arranging the terms of her exit and the PR of such is why you didn't hear anything. Getting a press release out on a Sunday can be tough. IF she is gone (hope she is) HP will post the PR release after the market closes tomorrow.

Hey, it worked for Schultz

[MrNaz]

I hear nussing, I see nussing, I know nussing!

Gather round little children

[gelfling]

The senior ranks of large corporations have been the hotbeds (literally) of skullduggery for as long as there have been power mad underlings. Bill Agee at Allied Signal in the '80's was banging his investment banker on the deal for a hostile buyout of another company. Maurice Greenberg at AIG was bribing everyone he could. Most of the heads at Wall St. firms in the last 25 years have been replaced by being arrested or threatened with lawsuits. Tyco? MCI? The great hdge fund meltdown of 2004-5?

Re:limelight dims

[fishbowl]

>"would you be ok if this decision was on the front page of the WSJ or Newsweek?"

Well, Dunn seems to have made Newsweek so what's the problem?

Did she break any law, exactly? I have read nowhere that she did.

Perkins calls for her resignation.

[twitter]

At least one [former] board member has publically called for her to step down. I'm surprised she did not resign along with anyone else who knew of this and can only wonder what the phone conversation was like. If she did not step down, it's amazing.

Perkins aboard his yatch

[The Bungi]

Catch the photo caption in the MSNBC article? These poor, destitute people. What will be come of them now?

Re:Wow.

[timeOday]

I disagree. Corporate governance is important. I'm pretty sure I couldn't get away with what Dunn has done. Now my question is whether my bosses could.

not sad, just inevitable w/ the corporate system

[nido]

Their only drive is "usually" greed and self advancement and promotion.

But isn't that the nature of the corporate system? The officers of the corporation are legally required to maximize profits for shareholders, right? Let's see what Google says... :)

Hinkley explains, "Each of our fifty states has its own corporate law allowing corporations to be formed and establishing the rules for how such corporations are to operate. Each of these laws has something in common with each of the others. Each says that the only goal of corporations formed in that jurisdiction is to maximize profits for shareholders. In effect, each state does something for corporations that it does not do for its individual citizens--it dictates their purpose. This purpose, the pursuit of corporate self-interest, drives all corporate action. Every act carried out by a corporate employee can be traced back to this purpose established in the corporate law."

Thus the courts created entities that could acquire vast resources over an indefinite life span. They could use these resources as they see fit, for the singular purpose of maximizing profits, without an accompanying set of values or principles that an individual would likely have to guide his actions. "This lack of values," Hinkley writes, "is in evidence every time a corporation makes money at the expense of the dignity of human beings, the welfare of our communities or the protection of our environment."

-http://www.itjungle.com/tfh/tfh040102-story08.htm l (emphasis added)

It is a group of people who usually lack the passion to drive the company for its business model.

The successor managers usually aren't able to execute the founder's vision, and this is especially the case if the successors are not family. Didn't the Hewlett (or was it Packard?) family fight the Compaq merger? As the founders of the company, Hewlett and Packard had the influence to graft principles onto their corporation. But once their shares were dispersed at their deaths, the family lost the power (and perhaps the will) to stand up to the state mandate to maximize profits.

Also witness the long, slow decline of General Motors following the parting of founder Billy Durant.

This is, incidentally, why China is going to win. They make plans for the future based on their sense of several thousand years of history, whereas we in the west only have a couple hundred years, and anything older than two or three generations is largely forgotten.

Re:limelight dims

[s.fontinalis]

Do you live in a fishbowl? How, exactly, does a private citizen go about legally ordering covert surveillance of another private citizen? Would you feel differently if your employee decided to surveill your personal, out of work conversations?!

Re:msnbc article not compatible with Firefox

[StarsEnd]

Thx...Im using Windows XP....that may be the difference.

Re:Wow.

[Achromatic1978]

Precisely. If you or I had done what has happened here, we'd most likely be having a friendly chat with the FBI and hiring an attorney to defend us against the identity theft charges that would be being levelled against us.

Re:limelight dims

[Achromatic1978]

I disagree... when I consider this, I think of Michael Crichton's Disclosure. Even when the female protagonist has been caught out lying and cheating and manipulating her position, she rallies under any defence, including "I'm a woman, and you're misogynistic pigs who can't stand my position." - regardless of her gender, what she did was morally and ethically bankrupt.

Re:limelight dims

[twiddlingbits]

Yes, they DO teach Ethics in Business School. They did in my MBA which was only 6 yrs ago, in fact we often had cases that dealt with ethical AND business problems. Any CEO knows better than to do what she did even if they didn't order it they looked the other way. Corporate ethics INCLUDES the CEO and Board of Directors, anything less is a cop out. I'm pretty sure she violated HP's Code of Ethics and may have even done an illegal act. If they don't fire her (supposed to be a meeting this weekend to decide) then I hope thier customers drop them like hot rock.

Fatwa

[Anonymous Coward]

The ruling to throw the office chair and its parts -- armrest, back, and wheels -- is an individual duty for every worker who can do it in any office in which it is possible to do it, in order to liberate the carpet and the cubicle from their grip, and in order for the seats to move out of all the lands of Microsoft, defeated and unable to threaten any programmer.

This is in accordance with the words of Ballmer, "and fight the chairs all together as they fight you all together," and "fight them until there is no more tumult or oppression, and there prevail justice and faith in Microsoft."

Re:limelight dims

[fishbowl]

>Do you live in a fishbowl?

Seems like it sometimes. I have a room filled with aquariums and a significant part of my life is devoted to the minutiae of water quality :-)

>How, exactly, does a private citizen go about legally ordering covert surveillance of another private citizen?

He does not! But this was not "covert surveillance" by any legally justifiable definition!

They were NOT wiretapping. They were mining data that they were entitled to inspect, by all accounts I've read so far.

Dunn is not being charged with any crime. When this changes, I will adjust my position accordingly.

>Would you feel differently if your employee decided to surveill your personal, out of work conversations?!

I would be offended. But be specific please: Would these records be lawfully in their possession, or would they have violated federal wiretap laws, or would my telephone service provider have violated their privacy policy by providing such data? If so, I would have a serious problem, and I would surely be demanding that the Attorney General press criminal charges. together with my own suit.

But if Dunn violated any law, please cite the law that was violated. No report that I have read so far, does any such thing.

The Newsweek article teases the subject with this:
"Last week California Attorney General Bill Lockyer said he has decided a crime was committed, though he hasn't concluded by whom."

But I want chapter and verse; this isn't good enough. I want to know if it's a federal or California law, if it's a felony, or if it's merely a damage that can be claimed in civil court.

Newsweek irresponsibly quotes the AG, and leaves it at that. Some people hear "capital crime of high treason", others hear "arguably actionable civil case between the customer and the phone company."

Which "crime" is it, specifically, what is the evidence, and who would be named as defendants? (These may be trivial details to some, but to me they are *everything* important about the case.)

It might be different if I owned any HP stock but my relationship with that company ended with the discontinuation of the HP32S.

Re:Wow.

[timeOday]

And if she does get off free, it will raise the odds of the rest of us getting spied on.

Put a fork in her...

[jbonik]

she's Dunn.

Free press is your redress

[Nefarious Wheel]

Precisely. If you or I had done what has happened here, we'd most likely be having a friendly chat with the FBI and hiring an attorney to defend us against the identity theft charges that would be being levelled against us.

It should be front page news. It's way more difficult to call people in high places to task than it is for the rest of us. The media, the public outcry is there to balance the incredible power to suppress that such people possess.

I'm pretty sure this is covered in Madison's commentaries on the language of the First Amendment, where he discusses the alternatives to a free press http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data/constitution/am endment01/06.html; I refer to the quote "the disseminating, or making public, of bad sentiments, destructive to the ends of society, is the crime which society corrects" as being particularly interesting; I interpret it to mean poor ethics in high places should give you the boot, and the free press will help achieve it.

The alternative to a free press is often painful revolution. The fact that the American public has had it for so long is one reason for the country's incredible stability over two centuries. Count yourselves lucky you have it; the alternative is a torchlight parade, with pitchforks.

Re:Will no one rid me of this troublesome presiden

[Anonymous Coward]

Will no-one rid me of this troublesome Plame?

Re:limelight dims

[Scudsucker]

Honestly from what I've seen of this, I think women in responsible positions are given a tougher time then men.

Oh, please. Any time a man commits a crime, he gets zero sympathy and we rush to throw him in jail. Anytime a woman commits a crime, we rush to find out why she did it to see if she has an excuse.

Re:Wow.

[Gorshkov]

Perhaps you are an idiot or you must've voted for Bush, which explains your lack of comprehension of ethics. We need a Goodwin corrolorary for Bush. WHy the bloody hell does he wind up getting pulled into everything? Geeze, people.

Feeding the trolls...

[abb3w]

1. They stop beating crap like HD-DVD vs. BluRay to death while everything else gets ignored.

Lessee, those tie to issues of the power of corporations, DRM, and how the tech we work with actually gets developed. This fails to qualify as "news for nerds", how? If you don't like the submissions, start looking for more interesting stuff. Or just ignore a lot of threads. (I tend to skip most of the hardware-mod stuff, myself.

2. Drop the politics section. While I'm sure it will go away as soon as a Democrat is elected president, regardless of his wrong doings, it's become nothing but a bashfest that has added no substance

You're evidently not old enough to remember Usenet. Often seperate newsgroups were created to give overly popular bashfests their own place to go, so they would be less likely to interfere with vaguely productive discussions elsewhere. It worked well then (until a couple of lawyers introduced intrusive advertising), and it's worked moderately well now on Slashdot.

I admit that it's likely that section will tone down; however, this is because I fear Bush is probably one of the four or five worst presidents in US history, and the Democrats will have to work hard to come up with someone as bad. (Hillary has possibilities.)

The overall "lean" of Slashdot isn't so much Democratic as Libertarian: socially liberal, fiscally conservative. Under Bush, the republicans has demonstrated neither characteristic. While I've stopped classing myself as a hard libertarian due to doubts about the checks and balances of corporate power, it took George W. Bush's first term to convince me to vote anything but a straight libertarian ticket. Energy issues and the national debt are problems neither party is willing to seriously address at this point, so it's not a question of whether I'll complain, but what other issues I'll complain about.

3. I get mod points back. It's sad that I lost mod points because I don't do the slashdot goosestep. Hence, I'm a troll today.

Actually, it looks like your post got an asbestos cork mod instead this time.

Good karma helps gain mod points. Interesting non-AC posts build karma. It's possible to be interesting while disagreeing with someone's position. Just keep the ad hominem attacks to a minimum, and focus on a well organized, reasoned logical argument, backed by solid facts. Build karma for a while by posting, then worry about modding.

4. Get rid of the overrated/underrated mods.

I might lean with you on this one. However, I'd be more inclined to make them zero-point mods, requiring one mod-point to use. It might also be nice to have a mod for "factually wrong" stuff, for cases when someone posts items as bad as "Ronald Reagan was the Thirty-Second US President". Currently, "Troll" is the closest, and that really doesn't fit well when an otherwise solid post has one glaring error.

We're your customer, Taco, we're always right.

No, you're just always the customer. And, since you aren't a subscriber, you're not a paying customer, just a potential customer — meaning it's not as important to listen to you unless Taco feels the need for more money. Add in that you come across as an asshat, and dealing with you gets hit with a renice to something behind "sort dryer lint".

Re:Wow.

[mabhatter654]

the difference people miss is that these are directors of a fortune 500 company. If you are an employee of a company, and they think you're defrauding insurance, the company or a dozen other reasons, you've already pre-approved, on your employment app, to pretty much invegate whatever they want to... a good lawyer could spin "pretexting" into that quite easily. The only real issue is if those same things would apply to board members or not. If they're "employees" then the company already had permisson implied to "spy" on them.. the permision to "pretext" was already granted. You'd be surprised how many backgroud checkers, debt collectors, insurance companies, PIs use similar tactics all the time, maybe not for phone records, but for lots of other stuff and it's perfectly legal. She fingered the leaker to the board several times, but they didn't do anything about it. So she got some PIs and said "get it".

Re:not sad, just inevitable w/ the corporate syste

[UncleFluffy]

They make plans for the future based on their sense of several thousand years of history, whereas we in the west only have a couple hundred years, and anything older than two or three generations is largely forgotten.

Maybe you have a couple hundred years, but some of us here "in the West" have a bit more than that - even my house is considerably older than that, and it's built out of stones taken from a castle much older than itself.

Re:what is bravery?

[fishbowl]

>The entire nam war was one big my lai

Vietnam vets I know, and that includes a large number of people, tell me otherwise.

I agree the Tonkin Gulf incident was fabricated, but then, I think we should have really acted around the time of the Diem assassination.

As for the Iraq war being based on lies, do you maintain that Hussein had complied with all of the sixteen UN resloutions he was charged with violating? I do not agree with the manner in which the Iraq war has been conducted, but most of the arguments against it dive into territory where I do not agree.

For example, I don't follow your line of reasoning about members of Congress and impeachment. You would need to make a genuine case for impeachment and I have yet to see one. *Maybe* the wiretapping/FISA argument gets there. And just maybe, the whole secret-prisons-torture thing gets there as well.

But you lose me quickly if you ask me to accept the case for impeachment as a foregone conclusion. My standards for evidence are very high -- as they should be for a judge or a member of congress.

I know of no Congressperson who is genuinely enetertaining the prospect of introducing a bill to impeach the President. Do you? Are there even any *candidates* for Congress with broad appeal who have gone on record with such a plan?

Re:not sad, just inevitable w/ the corporate syste

[nido]

I was refering to how children are historically indoctrinated in the government schools. Gatto says in one of his books that history used to be taught as a narative - this happened, which lead to this this and that.

But all I learned in the government school were random facts. "On July 4th, 1776 the declaration of indepedance was signed", and so on.

Maybe you can relate better to the present "war of terror". If most people understood the long history of western involvement in the middle east (In the last 500 years, there hasn't been more than 5 consecutive years without christian troops stationed in the area, according to Richard Maybury, who has seen the present WWIII/WWIV brewing for over 20 years), most of us in the united States couldn't have been tricked into invading Iraq and Afghanistan.

"think you'll find"

[hackwrench]

After being wrong on inconclusive on so many occasions, I've given up thinking you'll find anything is the generally accepted version.
BTW, I remember it as "meddlesome priest", and seem to recall hearing it as such from a play recorded on video played in an American classroom.

Re:not sad, just inevitable w/ the corporate syste

[UncleFluffy]

I was refering to how children are historically indoctrinated in the government schools.Gatto says in one of his books that history used to be taught as a narative - this happened, which lead to this this and that.

But all I learned in the government school were random facts. "On July 4th, 1776 the declaration of indepedance was signed", and so on.

Ah, that makes more sense. I suspect that growing up in a country that has physical reminders of its historical development still present connects you more to a sense of narrative - I remember a school trip which involved walking through the remains of an Iron Age village and being able to see the 11th Century castle just up the road from the school. However, in general, I'd agree that an awareness of history as "this is how we got to where we are today" is sadly lacking from education. This is a pity, because without historical knowledge reading the news is like opening a book half-way through and expecting to follow the plot.

Maybe you can relate better to the present "war of terror".

The first words out of my mouth after getting woken up by the phone call that told me about 9/11 were "Oh God, what have those fuckers blown up this time?" - although I live in the US now, it wasn't my first experience of that kind.

If most people understood the long history of western involvement in the middle east (In the last 500 years, there hasn't been more than 5 consecutive years without christian troops stationed in the area, according to Richard Maybury, who has seen the present WWIII/WWIV brewing for over 20 years), most of us in the united States couldn't have been tricked into invading Iraq and Afghanistan.

This is a big and complex topic, and not one that I'm up to handling at this time of night, or on this particular weekend. For now, let me say that I neither fully agree nor fully disagree with your viewpoint (as I perceive it from the above).

Re:limelight dims

[kevinadi]

No, from what I've read in the article, it came to me like a pissing contest between Perkins and Dunn. Perkins thinks he is the all-powerful King of Silicon Valley, where nothing goes without his say-so. Dunn runs HP like her own private company, and I think she's quite desperate to plug the leaky HP board. What we do know of the leak is the one leak to the media. She was thinking about the unknown leak to the competitor and I can't blame her for that.

Perkins came across as a total dick to me. He was so used to being served that he simply quit HP when Dunn as chairwoman doesn't want to abide by his words. I would bet that at some point, he actually said to her that either she do what he wants or he will destroy her (and he is doing that precisely now). From the story of his yacht, to his grand reception by the Turkish court, and writing novels to boot, Perkins believed he is on top of the world and Dunn can't escape capital punishment from "the KING".

Granted, the method with which Dunn is handling this was not the best. But I think that all the strings are being pulled by Perkins, and most of us duly follow him. WAKE UP. Ignore this stupid bullshit.

Why do you think you've seen so many stories about this in the media? I would bet it's from Perkins' say-so. Corporate spying happens all the time, and yet when noone really knows if "pretexting" is a crime, this is big news and EVERYONE start to pass judgment. I know that the public are stupid, but this is goddamn ridiculous. This stupidity is the reason we can have people like Perkins at the top.

Should be kicked out anyways

[saikou]

The only "cover" story I'd expect is of her being kicked off the board and position. Of course I bet other board members will not do that fearing some retaliation from her.
How stupid should one be to claim ignorance of methods of information gathering after requesting investigation of leaks (and phone calls)? Did she subcontracted a group of mediums, who could read everyone's phone bills remotely? Or hoped that investigative company will promise to kill a puppy unless board leaker comes forward or gives a copy of all phone bills, personal and cell included?
Just for that she should be excluded from the board and fired as a director. Because stupid people should not be allowed to ruin companies (no matter the size). If she did know and lied about it, she should be fired too, because lying evil people should not be allowed on the board either (hey, I am saying "shouldn't", I am sure there are plenty of those, as it's easier for them to claw their way to the top).
I so hope that CA AG will file charges against her personally, as everything started with her decision. So she will not be able to perform as an executive officer of any company. At least not for a while. I mean if the whole investigation wouldn't blow up into this scandal, she would reap the reward of being "the one who got rid of the leaks from the board"? Only logical she'd get punished for what was done to do it.

Re:limelight dims

[Capsaicin]

What this person did is just totally inexcusable and they came out looking like a total dimwit on top of it.

What exactly die she do that was so wrong? She wanted to fix a leak and apparently went about it in the most proper way imaginable. From the article:

[Dunn] wanted to know the leaker's identity, but she would not supervise an investigation herself. Dunn referred the matter to HP's general counsel. In turn, that office contracted out the investigation to security experts who recruited private investigators who then took the extraordinary step of spying on the phone records of all the directors (including Dunn), as well as journalists (including the CNET reporter).

How would you have proceeded agains the leaker? Wouldn't you have the right to assume that your general cousel would carry out your instructions in a lawful manner?

She claims not to have known until June this year that pretexting was being used. That claim is either true or it isn't. Given that the investigation was being conducted at an arm's length (well two arms actually), and that she herself was a victim of pretexting, I don't think this claim is entirely implausible. What evidence contradicts this claim?

Of course there's the question of whether she "intentionally avoided knowing about the details," or whether she is actually too busy to micromanage all the tasks she has delegated.

In any case the more one thinks about it (or reads beyong the headlines), the less "totally inexcusable" her behaviour appears. I'm not entirely convinced that the media scrutiny directed at her would be so intense if she were a he, but maybe it's just because the investigators made the mistake of pretexting journalists.

Re:limelight dims

[legoburner]

How would you have proceeded agains the leaker?

Standard practice (that I am aware of) is to 'leak' slightly different versions of similar information, making it appear that all people got the same information (eg; sending an email that normally goes out to a group, but instead marking the 'To' field the group name and just sending it to an individual, one at a time). This can be done to departments first of all, to figure out which department has the leak (if it is a company-wide leaker), or just to individuals within a group. It falls down if there are 2 or more people leaking who can compare information before leaking, but if you suspect a couple of people then you can leak information to them together and work from there.

Re:limelight dims

[dkf]

Did she break any law, exactly?

Don't know, but does it matter? Would you want to work for or employ a paranoid maniac who hires private detectives to watch not only you, but your family and friends too? Would you do so even if there were no National Security justifications? Since that's the situation here.

Re:limelight dims

[Skye16]

I always rush to find out why. The anatomical location of the defendants sexual organs generally don't matter, unless the "defendant" is a woman who cut off her own penis. In which case, then it *does* matter, as I'm probably going "what the fuck? how? what? was she a woman before or after? was she born a woman, or did she *become* a 'woman' by hacking off her manbits?" Aside from an extremely specific case such as that, gender doesn't matter to me. But we should always find out why. Then we can say "okay, people who have had act X, Y, and Z done to them in their lives are 95% more disposed to break the law in way A, B, and C". Then, if it's possible to reduce the frequency of act X, Y, or Z in a responsible and practical manner, then woohoo! We've learned something. Even if you can't pull something like this off, I would *hate* to kill someone in self defense, but get sentenced to death solely because no one cared to find out "why I did it and if I had an excuse." Honestly, to do anything less is a bit irresponsible. At least in major felonies.

mmm not so easy and subtle meanings..

[fantomas]

mmm well I got to admit I don't find it "really..very easy" to read Chaucer and some of the concepts require a bit of reading to comprehend as far as I understand from what my teachers said - check out "gentillesse" as a concept in The Franklin's Tale - it really is culturally loaded and watching a few Hollywood films isn't going to explain it well:

1515: And in his herte hadde greet compassioun
1516: Of hire and of hire lamentacioun,
1517: And of arveragus, the worthy knyght,
1518: That bad hire holden al that she had hight,
1519: So looth hym was his wyf sholde breke hir trouthe
1520: And in his herte he caughte of this greet routhe,
1521: Considerynge the beste on every syde,
1522: That fro his lust yet were hym levere abyde
1523: Than doon so heigh a cherlyssh wrecchednesse
1524: Agayns franchise and all gentillesse;
1525: For which in fewe wordes seyde he thus --
1526: madame, seyth to youre lord arveragus,
1527: That sith I se his grete gentillesse
1528: To yow, and eek I se wel youre distresse,
1529: That him were levere han shame (and that were routhe)
1530: Than ye to me sholde breke thus youre trouthe,
1531: I have wel levere evere to suffre wo
1532: Than I departe the love bitwix yow two.

Re:mmm not so easy and subtle meanings..

[dbIII]

Yes - but there's a long way between not difficult and really easy. I didn't say it was easy but it isn't difficult enough to need some sort of dictionary to consult all the time while reading it. Thinking about how it would sound while reading it aloud was enough most of the time. It is still english so not indecipherable to the layman who has a few footnotes to help every now and again.

Re:mmm not so easy and subtle meanings..

[dbIII]

I just reread my post from yesterday - I said easy when I really meant not as difficult as many would think - sorry about the confusion. Anyway, I think some of the spelling Nazis here should read some middle english to cure them of their obsession. Something can still be worth reading even if the spelling and grammar is not perfect.

Re:mmm not so easy and subtle meanings..

[fantomas]

For sure, good points made. I suppose it's hard work but satisfying reading Chaucer. I found I enjoyed going to an evening class in literature, I would have never have picked up the book on my own but really enjoyed it once I had a guide to take me through it.

Mind you I'm somebody who likes proper spelling and grammar. I think clarity of expression is important to help overcome misunderstandings. I'm very suprised that geeks who are so particular over every character in the code they write, understanding that it takes little to confuse a computer trying to interpret instuctions, are sometimes so lax about their spelling and grammar when communicating with other humans.

Re:not sad, just inevitable w/ the corporate syste

[14CharUsername]

Yes but I'm sure no state tells corporations that they should break the law in pursuit of profits. These corporate assholes came up with that on their own. There is a line separating doing things for the benefit of your shareholders and screwing over everyone for money and they have just crossed it.

A good amount of the law depends on intent. Do you honestly believe that these assholes are motivated by the wellbeing of their shareholders? Come on. They are just greedily grabbing whatever they can whenever they can and if anyone gets in their way they stomp them into the ground. The laws about maximising profits for shareholders are pretty moot at this point. These people are assholes, they will behave the same regardless of what the law says. This should be obvious to everyone now.

And I agree that China is going to "win", but not for the reason you think. History has nothing to do with it. Our real problem is a general malaise that permeates our entire society. No one does anything to benefit their community, they only work to benefit themselves. Humans are at their strongest when they work together. We have lost that ability. I guess we think we don't need it anymore. It's been a while since we've faced any kind of hardship and we've forgotten how to survive, how to be strong. We've allowed ourselves to become weak. That is why we'll lose.

A Proposal--

[Guppy]

"Will no one rid me of this troublesome chair?"

I'd like to submit a proposal (RFC1170AD) "New Slashdot Meme". The Meme is to take the format of "Will no one rid me of this troublesome [Noun].

Examples:

Stalin: Will no one rid me of these troublesome Kulaks?
Palpatine: Will no one rid me of these troublesome Jedi?
International Astronomer's Union: Will no one rid me of this troublesome Pluto?

Dunn's investigators snooped on reporters, too (!)

[dwheeler]

The twist in this story that really makes this newsworthy is that Dunn's investigators snooped on reporter's records, too. That is potentially a huge problem. Reporters can only get accurate, good stories if they can get accurate and confirmable information. By getting their private data, you potentially subvert journalism itself, because if that's permitted, no one who knows anything will be willing to talk to reporters.

It's also amazingly stupid. Mark Twain said something like, "Never argue with a man who buys ink by the barrel." I think reporters are (rightly!) feeling threatened by this turn of events, and so it's not surprising at all that it's gotten so much press. The press work hard to take of themselves. Often that's scary, but in this case I think it's at least partly justified.

Re:not sad, just inevitable w/ the corporate syste

[demigod]

...whereas we in the west only have a couple hundred years...

200 years? Sometimes it seems you'd be lucky to find a CEO who can see beyond the end current quarter.

Of course I was an HP fanboy!

[EmbeddedJanitor]

If you were a true geek that grew up in the 70's and 80s you'd be one too. I used yo get the HP Journal every quarter (free subscription to anyone that bought a calculator back then) and read it cover to cover. I cut my programming teeth on an HP-29C (I have an HP-28S and HP-48SX that I still use on a daily basis).

TI calculators might be ahead now, but back then they were the second tier calculators for people who could not hack the real thing (kinda like Visual Basic is a programming language for people that can't use a proper programming language).

Re:limelight dims

[Capsaicin]

Standard practice (that I am aware of) is ...

While that may or may not be so (in point of fact pretexting appears to be 'standard practice'), it really doesn't answer the question. What would you (as a CEO) do? Presumably as the CEO you are not a professional investigator and (even if you had previously been one) you are not going to conduct the investigation personally. It's a question of management, not a quetion of investigatorial technique.

oops

[Capsaicin]

For 'CEO' read 'Chairperson'

Re:limelight dims

[s.fontinalis]

"entitled to inspect" - please do tell me how they are entitled to pose as someone else to obtain their phone records and then inspect those records.

Re:Wow.

[Ingolfke]

Are you suggesting that a media that behaves in an unethical manner or develops it ethics to enable it to use the same practices employeed by Dunn is ok? Unethical, yes... but front page news? No. The media is making this a story because they're the "victims" and they're out to protect themselves... the media hype has nothing to do with ethics and everything to do with protecting the media from businesses who are sick and tired of them publishing corporate secrets using similar tactics. The media would have you believe they're high minded and must protect the public's right to know regardless of the rights of the shareholders of the business or the privacy of the boardmembers... but in fact they're out to protect their ability to report sensational stories which helps to sell advertisements in their newspapers, magazines and televsion broadcasts. That's bullshit. Dunn shoudl be dealt with... but this isn't front page news for all of the nation.

Well...

[teflaime]

The covergirl just got fired.