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."

Comments

Don't put the blame on Hurd.

[mikesd81]

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.

Re:Don't put the blame on Hurd.

[bunions]

zuh?

From TFA:

Dunn replied: "Kevin, I think this is very clever. As a matter of course anything that is going to potentially be seen outside HP should have Mark's approval as well."

On Feb. 23, Hunsaker sent an e-mail to Dunn. "FYI, I spoke to Mark a few minutes ago and he is fine with both the concept and the content."

Easy

[wantedman]

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.