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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?
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.
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 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!
"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 reporter was sending out an SOS to the world, because not every little thing the CEO did was magic.
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
Because big business hasn't even got the thin veil of legitimacy "the mandate of the people" gives goverments. IIRC, a company or PLC has the same rights and obligations under the law as any other individual/legal entity.
Let the companies get away with it and it becomes a free-for-all privacy nightmare.
Resistance is futile. Reactance buggers it up.
"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
Ok, for the sake of argument, let's assume that you would stop short of approving the murder of the leaker(s). Just how far, short of that, would you still feel good about: knee-capping, breaking the bones in one's hand with a hammer, kidnapping a family member, burning down their house, torturing their cat, etc.?
Remember, you are protecting trade secrets here and the value of your HP stock is at stake.
I hope you think this is absurd but your comment is stupid. It is not the board's job to break the law and it is not within their purview to do anything necessary to protect the stock.
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!"
Several points people seem to be consistantly missing:
1) HP's board had a legal obligation to find the leak of financial information from the board. If they did not, they could be heavily liable under SEC rules.
2) HP engaged well known and respected investigative companies. This was not cousin Guido. These companies are legally in business and purportedly use legal methods
3) The companies the investigator used for the requests we now know as "pre-texting" are legally in business, and have been for a while. They are widely used. They take advantage of the poor security your vendors (ATT, Cingular, Verizon, etc) provide for our private data.
Given HP had a legal obligation to find and close the leak, exactly how else would you go about it? No one was volunteering to admit to being the leak, either within the board or the news agencies.
The news agencies also knew that the sensitive financial info was illegally leaked due to SEC constraints. Why shouldn't they be targeted with a sting? They are enabling the illegal behavior at the board.
The press has mis-reported this news item heavily. "HP wanted to plant spyware" was really "HP included a web link which would have reported an IP address if accessed". Just like ebay, yahoo, and every other company does.
"HP considered planting spies in newsrooms". No reference of the sources other than: anonymous sources close to the company. That could be anyone! Even Michael Dell!
Is "pre-texting" bad? Absolutely! Close that hole, AT&T, Cingular, Verizon!
Did the board mis-handle the investigation? Maybe. They did refer to legal council, who is ultimately responsible.
Was the board/Hurd aware of the intent to use pre-texting? No solid indication yet. If they were, and they were advised it was grey area of the law, then they were in bad judgement.
If they were not, then the finger should point to the investigative firm.
Again, HP *had to* find the leak, for both legal and financial reasons. If they did not, then they were vulnerable to a far worse legal situation.
So how would you go about finding the leak other than employ respected and credible investigative firms?
Given that most of the world outside of the security industry had no idea what "pre-texting" is, and how widely used it is, people need to think before they point the finger.
Myself, I'd just have demanded the entire board present phone records and calendars. Anyone who chose not to would be assumed guilty. HP's standards of business conduct are very strict. Any regular employee would have been walked out the door if there was any question of this type of leak. The legal risk from the SEC it just to high!
People should point the finger where it belongs: Your vendors and mine: AT&T, cingular, Verizon, and any other company who uses the last 4 digits of your SSN as it's secret ID.
Alan
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.
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.
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?
"Will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest?"