HP Spying More Elaborate Than Reported

theodp writes "The NY Times reports the secret investigation of news leaks at HP was more elaborate than previously reported. In addition to illicitly gathering private phone records almost from the start, detectives reportedly followed and videotaped some directors and journalists, were given photos of reporters to help identify them, and tried to plant surveillance software on a CNET reporter's computer. HP also fessed up to spying on its own spokesman, whose personal phone records were taken."

Comments

Who does HP think they are?

[mhazen]

I certainly didn't vote for them in 2004.

Will anyone care?

[TopShelf]

The interesting question is, will anyone care enough about this to stop doing business with HP? Will any major corporate clients reject these practices and refuse to deal with a company that engages in them?

I'm guessing not.

There will be a few people punished in a very public fashion, while behind the scenes this sort of behavior becomes commonplace.

Maybe it's just Monday Morning talking here, but I hope I'm wrong.

Re:Will anyone care?

[bleh-of-the-huns]

Unfortunately, you are correct, I work in a large corp/gov enviroment, the data center has been standardized on HP server products. With all that invested in a product, (not just the product but the support infrastructure), it would take years to change over to new hardware. I dont see that happening, not to mention the fact that HP proliant servers are quality equipment.

Re:Will anyone care?

[CaymanIslandCarpedie]

No, I cannot imagine customers will care. And since customers won't care its unlikely investors will care too much. Some investors could be a bit shaken by news and shakeup but I don't see institutional investors (they really drive the market) getting to worked up over this. Longterm its hard to see this having any real effect on the company. Probably the biggest danger would be the SEC finding bigger corporate goverancne issues related to this (not filing 100% accurate documents, etc). I haven't seen anything yet that is too likely to get them in enough trouble with the SEC to cause any real problems, but with the congress getting involved etc there could be some pressure to make an example (don't really see that happening to HP though). The SEC coming down harshly could be enough to get the large investors to pull back a bit. All in all I'd guess your correct. Probably the fallout will mainly be limited to those individuals involved.

Re:Will anyone care?

[HatchedEggs]

I think that the reaction to this is in part wrong. Lets note that the it was select individuals who were doing this... and not all of HP. Certainly, in this case the problems came from the top, but in that it has also been handled and said parties are stepping down.

In something like this, I don't think you should blame the whole company and try to take it out on HP as a whole. The perpetrators in this instance are quite identifiable, and it is they who should be taken to task.

What should we expect of HP? More oversight in how they handle their internal leak hunts, etc. Also, to do some work cleaning up their image after this and distancing themselves from those involved. Well, and other things. My point is, why would it make sense to try and punish the company as a whole for this?

And no, I don't work for HP. It just doesn't make sense to me to blame this on the whole company, as there are tons of great people that work there.

Re:Will anyone care?

[lucabrasi999]

With all that invested in a product, (not just the product but the support infrastructure), it would take years to change over to new hardware.

I am working on this type of migration right now. We are moving all applications to one vendor's hardware platform (and virtualizing it all). Our timeline on this project is 3 years. We could complete the task much more quickly, but we are being hamstrung by customer internal processes.

Re:Will anyone care?

[maxd24]

Sorry, but these aren't just a few employees, these are board members. They define the direction of the company. In effect, they ARE the company. You're correct that the individuals who work for HP are not to blame, but the corporation as an entity made a decision to conduct business in an illegal fashion. Whatever happens (and I don't expect it to be much) should happen to the corporate entity.

Re:Will anyone care?

[svunt]

We live in a corporatist society. When a company can lobby governemt, donate to political parties, and so on, it's natural that we should react to their behavior as we would an individual who'd done wrong.

We don't admonish people's hands when they steal, we do so to the whole person (and we address our comments to the head, or boardroom in this case).

I agree that the specificly guilty parties should wear this, but corporations cannot have it both ways; either they're an entity, responible for all their actions, or they're a bunch of people in the same building, and they can start asking favours of their congressman individually.

Re:Will anyone care?

[_damnit_]

If what you said were true, I'd be inclined to agree. The people involved have NOT been punished. The Chairwoman will keep her position until January at which point she will step down but KEEP HER DIRECTOR SEAT. The CEO Mr. Hurd, a director as well, was an informed and complicit participant in the decision as much as the Chairwoman. HE WILL BECOME CHAIRMAN. Another director resigned in protest of the investigation. His symbolic resignation intended to be an embarassing slight to the board and force them to reconsider their illegal actions was covered up and not reported to the SEC as required by law.

So, the roundup on punishments:
Chairwoman moves down one slot, keeps money, perks and most of her power.
CEO moves up to chairman
Director (read: good guy) who resigned out of sense of duty: still gone from boardroom
Number of directors on the board, reduced

What should happen? I'm not sure as I don't have all the facts and I don't claim to be a lawyer. As a layman, I would expect Chairwoman Dunn to lose her seat on the board and forfeit any unvested compensation. I would hope Mr Hurd would lose his position on the board as well. The board should bring back the resigned member. The fellow who was leaking info should be removed from the board and lose compensation same as Ms Dunn. HP and other companies need strong boards. HP once had a reputation for good governance. Let's hope that returns.

BTW - I don't work for HP or really care too much about them. No emotions or money invested.

How bad does it need to be?

[carpeweb]

Before this "even worse news" about the extent of the spying, HP's board should have forced Dunn to resign immediately from the board. Instead, they allowed her to continue as chairwoman until January and to continue as a director after that. I predict that the board will now force her immediate resignation, but will they also strip her of her directorship? What about severance? They should take it all, retroactively. IANAL, but I'll bet that's legal, somehow.

When will people admit it's fascism?

[Anonymous Coward]

I am from Italy. My parents were young adults during the brief time Mussolini was in power. While many Italians dislike discussing that time period, my parents were always willing to inform people of it, in the hopes that similar situations may be avoided in the future.

This is the sort of activity that became widespread during that period. Spying was omnipresent, be it on the street, at work, or while at restaurants. Collaboration between the elites of the business world the government allowed for this sort of privacy invasion to take hold, and further promoted it as time went on. Individual freedoms were thrown out "for the sake of the nation".

The very same appears to be happening in America and other "democratic" countries these days. On one hand, you have the government spying domestically on its own citizens (the whole NSA scandal, for instance). Security cameras are being installed all over the place, from street corners to ATMs. In some countries, the cameras apparently will have loudspeakers to direct the citizenry that are being observed. Now we find that the very same sort of actions are being taken by corporate executives. Soon enough that will translate down to regular workers. In short, it's a case of fascism much like Italy experienced in the mid-20th century.

Irony in the details

[carpeweb]

Well, this new story has a hidden gem.

According to TFA: "People briefed on HP's review of its internal investigation say that it was authorized by Dunn, the chairwoman, and put under the supervision of Kevin Hunsaker, a senior counsel who is the company's director of ethics."

How could it be otherwise?

Logistical nightmare

[Rob T Firefly]

HP also fessed up to spying on its own spokesman, whose personal phone records were taken.

How exactly did they fess up to that? I can just see the spokesman reading a memo to reporters..

"...and we at Hewlett Packard also regret using false pretenses to obtain the personal phone reacords of their spokesman, one Mr..... the freaking HELL?!"

Scandal goes higher than Dunn

[motorcrash]

According to this newly disclosed recording:

Simon: Gentlemen, I'd like you to meet your captain, Captain Oveur.
Clarence Oveur: Gentlemen, welcome aboard.
Simon: Captain, your navigator, Mr. Unger, and your first officer, Dunn.
Clarence Oveur: Unger.
Unger: Oveur.
Dunn: Oveur.
Clarence Oveur: Dunn. Gentlemen, let's get to work.
Simon: Unger, didn't you serve under Oveur in the Air Force?
Unger: Not directly. Technically, Dunn was under Oveur and I was under Dunn.
Dunn: Yep.
Simon: So, Dunn, you were under Oveur and over Unger.
Unger: Yep.
Clarence Oveur: That's right. Dunn was over Unger and I was over Dunn.
Unger: So, you see, both Dunn and I were under Oveur, even though I was under Dunn.
Clarence Oveur: Dunn was over Unger, and I was over Dunn.

Re:Would you work for a company that does this?

[Anonymous Coward]

You probably already do.

Re:Would you work for a company that does this?

[Opie812]

Cynical, *and* vaguely ominious in a 4 word sentance. Very nice.

HP's own corporate rules say...

[HPness]

http://www.hp.com/hpinfo/globalcitizenship/csr/sbc brochure.pdf This is a link to the SBC or the standards of business conduct. This was the bible of HP for many many years and it appears that although some question whether these rules are practiced at the lower levels, it appears that they are not at the higher levels either. If this was actions of any HP employee, they would be TERMINATED. This is several magnitudes more extreme of a situation. The idea is not to operate within just the language and the loopholes, but to abide by the intent of the document which is to set the stage for proper conduct with a low threshold in cases where there is any question of being appropriate. This saddens many HP employees who have worked hard to reinforce a positive image of the company which did operate on a much more noble level in the past.