Slashdot Mirror
HP CEO Allowed 'Sting' on CNet reporter
Mark writes "The Washington Post, reporting on Hewlett-Packard's Chairman Patricia Dunn and alleged spying on other HP board members, has obtained e-mails that implicate the CEO, Mark Hurd, who approved an elaborate 'sting' operation on a CNet reporter." From the article: HP's leak investigation involved planting false documents, following HP board members and journalists, watching their homes, and obtaining calling records for hundreds of phone numbers belonging to HP directors, journalists and their spouses, according to a consultant's report and the e-mails."
I still can't belive this sort of thing happends and they got away with it. it boggles my mind in so many ways.
$DO || ! $DO ; try(); > try: command not found
Fromt the article: "None of the e-mails reviewed by The Post were to or from Hurd, nor do they detail what information Hurd had when he approved the sting operation."
Just because he approved the action to sting the reporter, he didn't necessairily know what the means were.
That which does not kill me only postpones the inevitable.
So now we've got CEO's investigating reporters, and reporters investigating Executives. When will they turn their high powered invest-i-scopes back onto politicians?
According to the article, "The idea, evidently, was to induce Kawamoto to open an e-mail attachment with a "tracer" in it that would allow them to see who she forwarded it to. They hoped it would pinpoint board member Keyworth as her source, according to the documents." How is this done? Is this something spammers do?
Dunn was/is a lame duck on the board. She has cancer and had no intentions of remaining as the chairman next year. Therefore, she knew what had to be done to stiffle the critics, i.e. friends of the Hewlett family. She succeeded in getting both of them off the board and now all is left is damage control with her taking the "fall". Gotta give her credit.
I knew they should have hired Paul Newman.
Let me answer my own question....because they are amoral.
It's amazing to think these people would sign off on such an act. They had to know that the means to collect information would be shady at best. If they didn't know, they're too stupid to be in their position. It makes one wonder how they got there and what nefarious acts they committed to achieve their position.
This is yet one more point on the side of "humans were not evolved under conditions that would lead to responsible behavior given extraordinary amounts of power in a society." Personally, I'm with Douglass Adams here - I think that anyone ambitious and capable enough to have gotten such power in the first place should by no means be allowed to exercise it.
Well I guess it's "better" than BushCo etc spying on all of our phones, but at least they can pretend that's for the greater good...
Apparently Mark Hurd setup a fake betting parlor to ensnare the cnet dude because he had killed one of his friends.
If you don't inquire into the details of what you've approved, it's either because you are: a) foolish, or b) don't want to be accountable.
If a CEO directs something sensitive to happen, it's their responsibility to be aware of what it is and how it happens.
If the government can spy on private citizens, why not big business?
If the Republicans are looking for a legacy for the 21st Century, I think they found it.
Is it any suprise that HP tends to donate more money to Republicans then Democrats?
If you want to to it the really n00b way: Place a link to a spacer.gif image in the email, then look at who accessed the image from your logs. You can even be script-kiddie clever by using a script disguised as an image to record all sorts of good information, like IP, browser, etc.
And yes, spammers use this to see if someone accessed their emails.
~~~
Click here, you know you wanna!
By that I mean, why is this wrong if it's not wrong for the United States Government to perform warrantless wiretaps and home invasions of every US citizen?
What comes next? Waterboarding for the board of directors at Cisco?
Do you suppose the HP board members can extend their outrage to outrage at the thought of the government spying on all of us (of which the HP board are generally a subset)?
I wonder how many HP board members contributed to the last re-election campaign for our maximum leader.
While this whole affair stinks and is without a doubt in a very shady area ethically, I'm having some difficulty seeing precisely where it is illegal.
I want to stress that I agree this is a stupid and amoral thing. I'm not some kind of monster. I never would have done this. That said...
As near as I can tell, they leaked a fake document and then attempted to see who the reporter forwarded it to for confirmation. They did this by turning on a feature that made the document call home. To my knowledge, this is not illegal.
They also acquired telephone records for a bunch of HP employees. Now, this seems to me to most likely have been the illegal step. It isn't clear to me how they went about doing this, and what HP employees had agreed to. Never mind the legality of this - how did they actually manage to convince someone to turn over the records?
I'm not condoning this, I'm just a little unclear where the law was broken. Can someone explain?
"The document, one of more than two dozen e-mails obtained by The Washington Post, for the first time links Hurd to an internal investigation of media leaks..."
The Washington Post quotes someone calling this a scandal. I don't see how it is. People hire private investigators all the time. HP had an idea that someone in their company was leaking information to the media. Why is it scandalous that they would want to find out who it is? I think if they just didn't do anything that shareholders would be pretty upset. I applaud HP for their efforts. I doubt they did anything illegal. If something they did was illegal we should be asking ourselves if it should be illegal. The people have a right to investigate just as much as the authorities do.
If I worked for HP and depended on their stock options for (a good portion of) my retirement, I wouldn't be the slight bit muffed by management doing whatever it takes to stop leaks that may end up hurting the company through the loss of valuable trade secrets, technology, etc. That's the board's job - to raise the stock.
SHIFT+DEL dude...SHIFT+DEL
and now with no ads!
Your sig(k) has been stolen. There is a puff of smoke!
The reporter was sending out an SOS to the world, because not every little thing the CEO did was magic.
Since California's Attorney General has launched an investigation, has already pronounced HP guilty of grave violations, and is very likely (for those familiar with NY's Spitzer) to levy fines in the hundreds of millions of dollars.
I find it funny that Slashdotters because they love HP approve of actions that are illegal under California law, for the private gain of HP boardmembers, while decrying GWB listening in to Al Qaeda plotters. But regardless HP will likely face around $200-300 million in fines and criminal trials, convictions for it's top executives and board members.
I would not want to be an investor in HP, it's basically toast as the executives circle around the drain and the liabilities are only growing.
Oh . . . wait . . .
This whole thing came about due to general bashing of the rights of individual, the concept of spying is trying to justify itself and integrate into the culture and psyche. The value of the individual is being eroded daily. The Soviet constution provided all the rights that Americans have. Except there was a clause that these rights can be suspended in some cases "for the good of the state". If you read the Declaration of Independence you will see that the founding fathers believed in the rights of the individual over some lofty pseduo utopian ideal of advancing the state. Governments are instituted for the protection of the rights of people (thats what it says in the consitution).
.. these are the same folks that would have said the 4th amendment is useless. They would have argued strongly against the 6th amendment, and would have laughed at the concept of the 8th amendment. Yet these are the same people passing themselves off as patriots today.
.. but I am not .. my point is that the general sentiment of folks seems to have twisted from rights of an individual towards the goal of advancing the state towards some utopia. And that is why you have people thinking it's OK to spy on possibly innocent people.
The people you have running around today justifying spying
There are folks walking around waving the US flag, and yet they dont believe that all humans are created equal and have inalienable rights. The very concept that founded the country! The nation was formed under war. Redcoat spies and traitors everywhere yet even in those troubled times they instituted the Bill of Rights.
If you listen to the fake patriots speech their philosophies imply that instituting the Bill of Rights back then in the nations infancy would have brought about the demise of the US. Yet the USA prevailed, liberty wins out in the end. They pass off some lie that torture can prevent an attack. But what about the innocent people you torture to prevent an attack?
It may seem that I am offtopic here
"I'm having some difficulty seeing precisely where it is illegal."
Let me call up your cell phone company, claim I'm you (because I've managed to get your SSN), and then get all your call records.
Then, I'll send you a trojan horse to your computer so I can record your keystrokes to see who and and what you're mailing.
Are you okay with everything so far? Does that seem all legal and above-board?
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
and be done with it!!!
Did Hurd not get the memo that the courts rediscovered the old management accountability rule, "the buck stops here?" Hell, in his case, it was a big loop back since the buck left his desk and returned to it!
What's amazing is how obvious it was that these guys knew that they were committing a slew of felonies, but did it anyway on something that would really creep out a lot of ordinary people. Fat chance of getting a sympathetic jury, Hurd. I hope for your sake you don't get any women on it because if the universe has any cosmic irony reserves left, it'll put a few women who have been victims of stalkers on your jury.
It's common sense for the tech crowd.
But the story isn't targeting them, it's targeting people who probably don't know or care about that sorta thing.
~~~
Click here, you know you wanna!
So if I arrange for someone to be killed, but don't specifiy the MEANS to do it, that's OK? "Hey, I didn't know HOW the guy was gonna get killed.. maybe it was going to happen real nice and proper like?."
Funny, I thought deception, fraud, and outright lying were wrong from the get-go. Now apparently the only thing that's wrong is HOW you go about deceiving, defrauding, and lying. If you do it properly, it's not wrong. Silly me.
AccountKiller
Chairman: Yeah, he skipped out and *ptruut* went to South America!
Board member 1: South America?! What kind of snow blower did you get us mixed up with?
Board member 2: Ok, gentlemen. The fact remains you still have no proof. This is all speculation and hearsay.
Chairman: Wait, there is one way to find out. We set up a sting. You know like Abscam. Like Abscam Jerry.
Board member 2: What are you gonna do? You gonna put on a phony beard and dress-up like Arab sheiks and sit around in some hotel room. I mean come on...
CEO: Wait a second. Maybe there is someway we can tempt him and find out...
Board member 1: If we put our three heads together we should come up with something.
the only thing the HP bunch can do is resign, now, and clear the Hell out today. put some field tech in charge of the outfit and try and salvage something.
I have to laugh at the heavy promotion HP is currently running about their Itanic server line, curiously named "Integrity."
folks, there is no integrity at HP when they are all about spies and lies.
Kenny Lay and Bernie Ebbers weren't evil enough to spy on employees, reporters, and each other on the board of directors, for God's sake. looks like all the high rollers at HP were.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
Why not call pretexting what it is -- stealing using social engineering.
we have here the old question, I think used rhetorically to get some folks thinking about our president and his advisors, of "If Jimmy jumped off a cliff, would you jump off a cliff, too?"
paranoia, spies, and lies is wrong, wrong, WRONG no matter who, when or why.
those HP folks must have been gorging on somebody's stash to risk the company because they don't like reading trade rags. if they don't like reading trade rags, then geez, get real, don't read 'em. drone on with your little laser pointers and bullet points and cash in your options like good little board members, take your junkets, and don't have any contact with the streets. that's what BoDs are supposed to do.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
This whole debacle does raise the questions of:
1. How do you stop leaks from occurring?
2. What's acceptable practice to do so?
Obviously, HP went too far in their actions. Investigating within the corporation is one thing, but going outside the corporation, in the manner they did, is beyond the pale. This is a matter easily dealt with by law, without requiring a huge amount of weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth.
The first question is more troubling, though. Apple leaks information like a sieve, information that they don't want out there until they do. So do most other tech companies in the manufactured products game, and it's obvious that current sanctions don't work. So how do you kill the leak at the source?
"My God...it's full of trolls!"
Anyone else notice the big HP advertisement at the top the page of TFA: "HP Notebook with Biometric fingerprint sensor - it helps safeguard your data - giving you the peace of mind to get back to business".
If you or I did what these clowns did, then we'd be serving time in Fort Leavenworth.
if they are part of the 56%?
Confucius say: "Man who associates with smarter men than himself is smarter than the men he associates with."
That said, everything else HP's CEO did stinks to high heaven of criminality. Compromising computers, stalking reporters, and fraudulently obtaining phone records should send a perpetrator to jail.
This is not my sandwich.
I'm not sure I really see the big deal. It's just the rich spying other rich people. It's not like the government spying on everyone. It's not like HP is spying on its own customers. If HP was spying on the cleaning staff that works at its buildings then I think there would be real public outcry. Mostly I think people just find the behavior of HP paranoid (to the point of being a clinical case), but not terribly unethical.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Um, I'd have to say Hurd is refering to the concept and content of the bogus ppt file and _NOT_ the methods used in the .
The leap the reporter is making is waaaay too big to be accurate.
A non-techie created a technical presentation. A CEO with a technical backgroup said the concepts and content of that presentation is good.
How the hell does that translate into "I approve the methods used to track a html email via a zero length gif." ??
They may as well...
I'm a bit tired of hearing about this. The issue has very few implications beyond HP.
On the one hand, If someone is leaking sensitive info, the Board has a responsibilty to stop the leak.
On the other hand, they need to do it legally.
I'm not convinced anyone but the investigators broke any law and I'm not convinced that the people who hired the investigators should be held 100% culpable.
I'm really annoyed that there is any question that lying about your identity to obtain personal information on someone else might be illegal.
I'm seriously annoyed that a whole new word needed to be invented (or at least dredged up) to describe what happened ('pretexting')
I'm really sick of the 5 articles per day that the Merc feels is necessary to cover the story.... but then this is the paper the relegated the Thailand coup story to page three while running "Is it possible that NYC could be safer than San Jose?" on the cover.
Sorry for the rant...
Jeff Skilling, Bernie Ebbers, Dennis Kozlowski, Martha Stewart, and John and Tim Rigas beg to differ with you. George Bush's Justice Department put them all behind bars, some of them for decades.
-ccm
Too much Law; not enough Order.
Put your pathetic political position aside when you moderate. Parent makes a good point.
(%i1) factor(777353);
(%o1) 777353
Related to the whole HP thing but not this article is that I've just realized that this whole "pretexting" thing wasn't a form of sending false text messages to phones, but a euphemism for "lying". Just thought others might not have caught on immediately either. I guess I wasn't thinking "low enough" to catch on more quickly.
Obviously, HP went too far in their actions. Investigating within the corporation is one thing, but going outside the corporation, in the manner they did, is beyond the pale.
There was NOTHING wrong with investigating the outsiders involved with the leaks. Even (especially) if they were reporters.
What WAS wrong was USING ILLEGAL MEANS to do the investigation.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
The funny part about the whole thing to me is that whatever secrets they were protecting so viciously can't have been so important. Talk about lost perspective. No one could possibly have cared very much. The only news turned out to be the bizarre countermeasures that were employed to address this supposedly diar leak issue.
It would have been better for them to have silently discovered the leak and then started staging fake meetings and releasing wildly stupid information, causing both the leak and the new sites that used the leak to lose credibility. Guess no sense of humor.
Hey, at least the executives didn't waste all of their time hunting that pesky wabbit...
"Not an actor, but he plays one on TV."
Reality is getting a bit too creepy for me... Hudsucker Proxy
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
...I just read the Washigton Post piece then noticed that the advert on the same page was HP advertising "You might have someones phone number, but you don't have there fingerprints" to sell some laptop with a biometric fingerprint sensor. I don't know if I should laugh or cry.
Then Karl Voth's "Reaper" exploit can phone home with the *content* of forwarded message including the comments added as people forward them.
The traditional way to trace a leak is to contact the journalist directly and offer juicy exclusives of more confidential information in exchange for the journalist betraying the source. Unethical, but it doesn't constitute fraud or computer trespass.
There's the risk of that technique failing if you try it on an ethical computer industry journalist (stop laughing so hard! You're turning blue! Take a long deep breath before you faint!).
violation, according to TheStreet.com and reuters.com.
one down, something like 7 to go, being the rest of the board and Hurd.
what is a violation of the code of conduct for one, is a violation for all.
Chicago Tribune had the california AG thinking about going to Hurd's news conference right after the closing bell on wall street. since he's been talking about plastering the place with subpoenas after the new lawyers gagged public comment from HP, I expect he will have five aides with boxes on handcarts to carry them all.
looking a lot like Watergate here, over the same damn thing. somebody got paranoiacally bent out of shape about one of their designated corporate leakers putting out a couple of things the board hadn't agreed to.
it won't end the same way. we can do without a corporation. we can't do without a central government that you can trust to preserve and defend the constitution of the US.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
Not that I'm condoning criminal behavior but, I can't help wondering if these HP execs did anything to the reporters that reporters haven't done to other execs. It seems almost inevitable that, sooner or later, some execs were bound to turn the tables, and use all the dirty little tricks that the press has been using on them for years.
So when is the Attorney General of California going to indict George Bush for illegal wiretaps?
Why does Dunn get to remain on the board? How is it "stepping down" if she remains on the board, while the whistle-blower is ejected? Are they just trying to send a warning message to whistleblowers?
I just got a new HP computer, and yesterday I was confronted by an HP popup message offering to check for updates. I wonder how much SPYware is in HP products now.
Oh You POS