HP's Dunn Stepping Down

XJHardware writes "Yahoo news is reporting that Patricia Dunn is stepping down from the chair of HP." From the article: "Hurd will retain his existing positions as chief executive and president and Dunn will remain as a director after she relinquishes the chair on Jan. 18. 'I am taking action to ensure that inappropriate investigative techniques will not be employed again. They have no place in HP,' Hurd said in a statement. Dunn apologized for the techniques used in the company's probe, which included 'pretexting' in which private investigators impersonated board members and journalists to acquire their phone records."

Comments

Pretexting??

[Harmonious Botch]

Maybe I'm old-fashioned. But in my day we called it 'lying'.

Re:Pretexting??

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

I'd go for "identity theft", personally. It's pretty accurate, but also sounds like Something We Should Fear(TM), as opposed to "pretexting", which sounds Naughty But Only A Little Bit(TM).

Re:Pretexting??

[Chris Burke]

Well, obviously the name "pretexting" is a lie itself, designed to cover up the uglier truth of "lying". It's all part of marketing corporate-speak, in which negative aspects of what you do are covered up through language trickery, in this case making up a word that nobody knows the meaning of.

I'm rather pleased that they have failed to pull the wool over anyone's eyes, but the fact that the word keeps getting repeated is bothersome. The news outlets should only be using that word in the context of explaining Dunn's lame attempt to cover up for fraud.

Re:Pretexting??

[Himring]

This truly boggles the mind. I work at a large corporation and watch/put up with insanity every day. It seems, at times, that the higher up you go the more insane things are. The old tale of "The Emporer's New Clothes," where insanity leads to a king walking naked down the streets, and only a child can see the truth, applies greatly.

I could write volumes on things that have happened in my career, but this HP debacle takes the cake. And the thing is, they feel entirely in their rights while they were doing it, after they were doing it and on up until they realized that they really had to explain themselves. They are confessing now because they got caught, not because they really felt it to be wrong. Thus are the ills of capitalism.

As a wise man once said: "Capitalism is the notion that evil men, doing evil things, will bring about the greatest good...." Or something to that effect....

Re:Pretexting??

[Pharmboy]

I am pretty sure that Communism had plenty of examples of spying and evil deeds. To assign this purely to the "ills of capitalism" demonstrates you are prejudiced against capitalism in general. My bet is that Ms. Dunn would be just as much of an ass if she were in power in a communist economy.

Capitalism does not require people act unethically, illegally or immorally. My fear is that people like you will simply use this situation to "prove" how capitalism is bad (and why whatever brand of economics you prefer is "right"), rather than understand it for what it is: PEOPLE that are bad, and would be just as bad, in any other economic system.

Another pisser is that by blaming capitalism, you are releasing her from fault, as it is "capitalism" that is at fault, and not an overzealous and unethical person, Ms. Dunn. She shares the blame with no one.

Re:Pretexting??

[Himring]

Me faulting capitalism does not equal me blessing communism. Your logic set is flawed....

Re:Pretexting??

[Pharmboy]

I only have a couple of years on you, but my bitter cynicism is directed toward the government and those who are elected on promises they have no intention of keeping. What give ME faith in capitalism is that it is practiced by everyday people, every day. Most of them are pretty good people, and most people are smart enough to know a bad one when they see them. Dunn is not just a bad Chairman, but a bad person.

Winston Churchill put it best: "The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries."

Re:Pretexting??

[Pharmboy]

The flaws are not with capitalism, but with the character (or lack thereof) Ms. Dunn. Again, to assign the blame to capitalism is simply saying "It's not her fault, it is capitalisms fault".

Re:Pretexting??

[Duhavid]

I have no doubt that Ms Dunn has character issues.

And she owns that.

Capitalism has a flaw in that it "prefers" ( as an
emergent behaviour ) people without character for high
positions like this. Because those people will do
whatever it takes, regardless of of ethics or legality,
and that makes more money.

Re:Head of Global Ops Too

[biglig2]

She's remaining a director after scamming the phone records of other directors? Frankly the entire board should go: the crooks should go because they're crooks, and the rest should go because they're crazy to stay on the board of a company that does this sort of thing.

By the way, isn't this sort of thing kind of illegal? Shouldn't people be going to jail?

Re:Pretexting

[CerebusUS]

Step down? Shouldn't someone go to jail for this? I agree it's fraud, let's treat it as such.

Hooray!

[Captain Sarcastic]

At least she did the right thing there.

I don't know if it was a King Richard II thing ("Will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest?") or if it was a cold-blooded decision ("Commander, tear this ship apart, and bring me the passengers... ahem, I mean, dig up anything and everything you can on whoever seems a likely target."), but either way there was no way that HP could have kept any customer or shareholder faith with her remaining at the helm.

What I find interesting is that the Justice department is checking this "pretexting" business out. Are they interested in prosecuting it... or duplicating it?

Screw That

[N8F8]

At least the slimy mofo George Keyworth who was blabbing to the press got his name slimed.

Now ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Dunn: "Now, just give me my 'agreed-upon compensation that will pay the salary for 100 people over a lifetime' and I'll be gone."

Re:Head of Global Ops Too

[operagost]

Well, Kevin Mitnick got himself jail time doing this sort of thing. The only difference is that, not being a company insider, he had to start from scratch. When you already have people's SSNs because you are a high-level executive with power or influence over HR, it should be trivial.

Could be radioactive

[mollog]

Good point. If the company supplied the SSN's of the board members to the investigators, I'd expect some criminal action against the company.

Re:No Big Surprise

[Pharmboy]

When you hit the cover of Newsweek as a shining example of corporate misbehaviour, it's safe to say your days are numbered.

Two words: Book Deal

This is America, where we celebrate those that do wrong and actually had to make a LAW that says if you murder or rape someone, you can't make money off any books/tv deals (but other crimes, and it's ok). Think about that, that means that people will buy books written by these criminals, and make the criminals potentially RICH, if you don't make it illegal. Might even get a "made for TV movie" out of it.

Re:High Crimes

[Anonymous Coward]

They're not royalty who must be referred to with a "royal we" or "your highness".

In some theoretical sense, no, they're not royalty. But in all practicality, corporate executives are. They're the ones who have access to money, often vast sums of it. And in America, having enough money elevates you to a position much akin to royalty. You can partake in activities that would result in severe punishment to less-wealthy individuals. You can be excused from any blame if you are caught. Such examples can be found many times over even just the past decade.

Re:Head of Global Ops Too

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

By the way, isn't this sort of thing kind of illegal? Shouldn't people be going to jail?

"People" go to jail. CEOs of Big Companies were not made to suffer the indignity of being subject to so vulgar a thing as "the law". The Ascendancy in prison?! What will they think of next?

It has nothing to do with capitalism

[Colin Smith]

Thus are the ills of capitalism.

As a wise man once said: "Capitalism is the notion that evil men, doing evil things, will bring about the greatest good...." Or something to that effect....

Whoever said that was a fool, not a wise man. Capitalism has never been anything to do with right, wrong, good or evil, it's about self interest. It's human nature and will happen no matter what type of society we have. What do you propose as an alternative?

Re:Head of Global Ops Too

[jcr]

CEOs of Big Companies were not made to suffer the indignity of being subject to so vulgar a thing as "the law".

Tell it to Ken Lay, Bernie Ebbers, and Michael Milken.

I'm sure this class-warfare rhetoric of yoursgoes over great with impressionable undergrads, but the fact of the matter is that wealth doesn't shield anyone from prosecution.

-jcr

But why mention capitalism?

[Sloppy]

The problem is that you mentioned capitalism, as though you were saying something distinctive about it, or that different economic systems might not have powerful people who think they can get away with being assholes.

Imagine if I went to the zoo and dropped 16-ton weights on all the animals. They all died. Then I said, "The problem with parrots is that they fail to resist a 16-ton weight." It sounds like I'm talking about parrots, but parrots actually have nothing to do with it. The real issue is the 16-ton weight.

Instead of "the ills of capitalism" it would have been more precise and less silly to say something along the lines of "the ills of human nature" or "some people are such assholes" or "power corrupts".

Some of the ills of capitalism is that people are mortal, there is evil in the world, and we still don't have "Mr. Fusion" under the hoods of all our cars. ;-)