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Calif. AG Files Felony Charges In HP Probe
PreacherTom writes, "Former Hewlett-Packard Chair Patricia Dunn, along with 'ethics chief' Kevin Hunsaker and others, was indicted yesterday on four felony counts by the California Attorney General. The charges, including wire fraud and conspiracy, carry a maximum penalty of 12 years in prison and $30,000 in fines. The indictments follow on the heels of an HP investigation of internal leaks that conducted "bugged" emails to C-Net reporter Dawn Kawamoto, illicitly obtained hundreds of phone numbers, and spied on HP board members." One of the indictments was for a private investigator retained by HP. The article has links to the complaints and warrants.
These are people who pose very little physical threat to society.
I'd rather Manuel the drug dealer be behind bars than Patricia 'wiretap' Dunn.
She deserved it as much as them.
So, if they are convicted...does that mean that pretexting is no longer "possibly" illegal, but is now a felony?
Insisting on "correct" English is like saying that there is only one, definitive recipe for chili.
most of us know what goes on in the boardroom. Discussions like "How do we make more money by making our products cheaper?" followed by "Why don't people want our products?"
Please let us hope we don't get saddled with another layer of crap like SOX did.
Yes some corporations have issues and their members break laws, but as it has been show they will pay their due under laws that existed at the time of the infraciton. Yet Congress is always willing to pander to the public by casting infrequent problems as "normal day on the job" and portray all corporations as "bogeymen". All that results is new layer upon layer of government regulation and more money spent to comply with regulations that needless duplicate existing regulations. Usually the only outcome is a whole different set of penalties which allow government agencies to throw who groups of charges at the wall in hopes something sticks.
In other words, look at rape cases. If the rape case doesn't float they turn around and charge you with a hate crime and so and so on. This is what is really happening, the government is attempting to circumvent the fact they cannot prosecute you multiple times. If they lose one way they just come back with another law and claim its wholly different.
So in the end, many businesses will needly get saddled with higher compliance costs and then pass them down to the consumer raising the costs of living for everyone.
So, at the first hints of new regulation write your Congressmen and let them know, no more crap laws, just enforce the ones they have.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
I hope they get some FPMITA time. They really need to send a message to these suits who think they can do whatever they please to people.
Excellent. For many corporate executive types such as Dunn and her ilk, the consequences for illegal acts are very abstract - at the very worst a resignation, cushioned by a golden parachute of stock options, pensions and benefits. It needs to be forcefully demonstrated to these people that if you commit a crime, you are by definition a criminal, and will be treated as such.
Years ago I heard the famous hacker Mitnick talk about similar investigative activity using the term "social engineering". IS this the same as pretesting? Social engineering exploits the weakest link in a security system are the people running it, not the technology.
A CEO authorizes spying and she gets charged with a felony and a full blown investigation.
A CEO President is spying on innocent Americans as long as he says he thinks they're terrorists, and what happens? His sheep in congress pass a law to make it legal for him.
I love the smell of hypocrisy in the morning as much as anyone. But come on, congress, senate, show some damn backbone like your colleagues did when they stood up to Nixon.
$8.95/mo web hosting
OTOH, she's recently been diagnosed with a recurrence of ovarian cancer, so maybe she'll be answering to a Higher Authority...
Best Slashdot Co
WTF is a "bugged email"?
12 years in prison and 30k max fine, eh? Too bad no one will get anything near that.
She's Dunn.
It never gets old, does it?
I am not your blowing wind, I am the lightning.
Dunn was a member of a private organization. Bush is a member of the government, your "CEO" red herring not withstanding. The government can legally do many things a private citizen may not. You (and I!) may not like this, but that's the world we live in.
Generally, bash is superior to python in those environments where python is not installed.
bedrock principle of law, goes all the way back to English common law.
Dunn is cooked whether she had chemo brain or not.
the litmus test ought to be the mirror, people... if you don't want weasels screwing you, why should you set weasels free to screw somebody else?
guilty, she's a witch, burn her!
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
"The charges, including wire fraud and conspiracy, carry a maximum penalty of 12 years in prison and $30,000 in fines. The indictments follow on the heels of an HP investigation of internal leaks that conducted "bugged" emails to C-Net reporter Dawn Kawamoto, illicitly obtained hundreds of phone numbers, and spied on HP board members."
HP should have accused them of being terrorists first. Then they could have had the Feds do it for them legally.
The term pretexting is really, really ridiculous.
When a pimply faced cracker does the same thing (call up people in order to gain illegal access to a system) it's called social engineering and fuck-as-hell illegal. When BigCorp does the same thing it's called "pretexting" and is considered a grey area.
Somehow this has a rancid stench of the application of newspeak in order to justify double standards.
Fucking hypocrites!
(I don't specifically mean your post, with which I disagree. I just wanted to get this off my system)
ich bin der musikant
mit taschenrechner in der hand
kraftwerk
It's really low to reply to your own posts. So, mea culpa!
ich bin der musikant
mit taschenrechner in der hand
kraftwerk
"The defendants, if convicted, face a maximum of 12 years in prison and a $30,000 fine"
The best part about the California AG's response is that the indicted HP execs are being arrested and jailed. A $30K fine for those people means nothing, especially if they pay lawyers $5M defending in court. And the "humiliation" that Business Week and its corporate media chorus usually like to claim is the "worst penalty" these execs could pay (like as the total penalty they tried to stick Enron with) cost them nothing, usually not even in business opportunities.
These perps are getting frogmarched to the pen, just like anyone else, regardless of how many keys they have to corporate washrooms. That action not only stops them from more abuses, but finally warns the thousands of other execs inspired by their "innovations" to steer clear or risk getting locked up, the great equalizer.
If only that also applied to Congressional child molesters.
--
make install -not war
I've found this to consistently be true:
In any decision a corporation makes, it will choose the most unethical path found acceptable to it's least ethical leader.
Some corporations have many leaders, and no strong central leader. I've found dealing with them to be miserable. For any decision to be made, it only needs to be acceptable to any one of their many leaders, thus, the whole corporation is able to justify acting like a raving-mad power-crazed lunatic. No single individual is highly unethical, just the corporation as a whole.
A board of directors typically has no strong leader, choosing instead a more democratic structure. This can lead to highly unethical behavior, as with the HP board.
I think the reason things work this way is simple. In any decision that might benefit the company, it's easier to simply stand-down and not make waves while somebody else carries out the unethical act. It's harder and more risk prone to stand in the way and demand ethical behavior. After all, corporations are about profits, and you'd be standing in the way of profits. Chances are far higher that you'll get run over than it is that people will say, "Yeah, your right. We were acting unethically, and we were wrong."
That said, I've found the vast majority of corporate board members to be amazingly ethical. After all, investors trust these guys with their money. But, it only takes one or two bad apples...
Beer is proof that God loves us, and wants us to be happy.
The trial will determine guilt or innocence. The punishment phase is something entirely different. The courts can grant clemency when they determine their remedy.
Pretexting is a term for one aspect of Social Engineering.
It's fraudulent activity and typically is defined as such. I do hope they get convicted- they ought to have
known better, from the PI that did the deed all the way to Dunn herself.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
For these people, $30k is wallet change.
- First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then ???, then profit.
be stripped of all your income and effectively be cast out on the street, or serve a few months in a penetentiary knowing that when you get out, you'll still have a home and property?
Same way every one is talking about illegal immigration, border fence and this and that. The 800 lb gorilla who is completely ignored is the employers who knowing employ illegal immigrants to cut labor costs and avoid social security taxes and workman comp.
Every one is talking about identity theft, and this and that. The 800 lb gorilla there is the credit reporting companies that steadfastly refuse to let me lock my own credit info. They lobby congress and the law winding through congress will let only the proven victims of id theft to freeze their credit reports. Sort of like people can buy locks for their barn doors only after proving that their horse is stolen.
This is going on everywhere. Dont call it pretexting. It is impersonating. Get the detectives and those who authorized this. But dont let the phone companies off the hook. They should prove that they were not criminally negligent or something. (IANAL).
Too much of lobbying by big corps. Too little protection for the common man.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
The comments that the punishment are too harsh are likely coming from the side that accuses the other of "coddling" criminals. They mean people who don't wear nice suits and don't scare them.
Jail is full of matchstick men; con men. These people are often not violent. They just do fraud and embezzelment. Should they be there? Most folks think 'yes'. Their crimes have anything to do with violence? No!
Jail is full of potheads. Are those folks a danger? No, they are too lazy to be. Their 'crime' is being a bunch of useless sleepyheads.
So why should we coddle and tolerate any type of felon? You can argue wether or not some crimes should be felonies, but that is a different argument.
I'll have temporary cancer", sang the bard.
Dunn however, really does have cancer, so if the proceedings are stretched out long enough, it will be a self correcting problem.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
You are conveniently ignoring the Patriot Act. The USA is operating under a limited State of Emergency. That act grants the President and others extra powers. The situation is not normal, even though it has been the 'norm' for a few years now.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
Also, from CNN:
Personally, I think "pretexting" is a much more accurate and better term for this than "social engineering".
The definition of pretext already includes the connotations of falseness and misleading. Social engineering is a complete misnomer, being, if anything, antisocial, and hardly a "skillful or artful contrivance."
And since "pretexting" is actually gaining traction in the popular media, and not "social engineering", I think you're going to have to deal.
Legal precedents here will establish the US Gov't privacy law for citizens rights with implications for national security where financial markets are involved.
There will become an increasingly uncomfortable distinction without a difference between HP and the US gov't practices wrt: privacy violations in the name of national security.
"It is precisely because these are skilled, intelligent, and successful people that their crimes should result in jail time."
I'll keep this in mind next time slashdot screams about some downloaders punishment.
I tried the to poor links. Neither makes it clear what Dunn did that was illegal or unethical. Browsing through slashdot, I've read the term "pretexting" several times, but no definitions or whether or not it is actually against the law. The one thing in the article that I saw that seemed illegal was private detectives obtaining personal information under false pretenses. The article didn't state though if their HP employeers directed them to use those methods or if the private detectives just used those methods and their employeers are getting the flak, but it turns out the people that the were using were breaking the law. There isn't enough information in the article for me to come out for or against Dunn or anyone else. Dunn is apparently the one that all this is falling on, but the article didn't make clear why. If I really cared, I'd look it up myself, but I could careless other than apparently those in the know have better info than what was linked to the main /. article and those that browse at 5 seem to be left clueless at what was actually going on.
When you get phoned up by a charity soliciting money, and the person on the other end of the line is very convincing - you may be talking to a convicted fraudster or confidence trickster.
Pining for the fjords
"OTOH, she's recently been diagnosed with a recurrence of ovarian cancer, so maybe she'll be answering to a Higher Authority..."
Darwin?
When did bringing up a good point get you moderated as flamebait? It's true that there is too much regulation of corporations right now. What needs to be done is better enforcement of laws already on the books.
--Pat
But we can't have NORMAL citizens doing that... that's uncivilized. I would think that HP the company should be drafting criminal industrial-espionage charges and "fair services" charges against the board members for leaking ILLEGALLY. But that won't happen... CEOs are just "employees" and board members are "owners" of the lower classes. Holding boards responsible has even less likely hood of happening than a CEO going to jail.
I wonder if this AG will be charging George Bush any time soon? If a ORDERING or REQUESTING little "phreaking" is worth up to 12 years, what's systematically setting up spy works at the telcos?? The information HP obtained was LESS than what the govt is stealing from ATT!!!
It would have been significantly better use of their time to, say, have them go on speaking circuits at business ethics meetings, or universities
Are you freaking kidding me? You want some of the most ethically-challenged people to go out and discuss ethics as punishment? That's about as useful as when I was younger, and my parents would force my sister to apologize after breaking my stuff... you know they don't mean it, so the message is useless and somewhat hypocritical at best.
A better solution to prisons in general would be to take the cue of various other countries (and one that was, I believe, used historically) and have the prisoners serve time doing manual labour. Nothing that will seriously endanger anyone's health, mind you, but for all but the most feeble of individuals there is some productive manual task they could accomplish. Then, take the money from the work they do, and use part of it to pay the bill for their lodgings, part to restitute the victims if possible, and maybe give some bonuses to the workers who show good behavior.
Of course, in North America we're just too darn civilized to make our criminals actually do hard work, but maybe if we took a cue from countries like China in this (with slightly better conditions) prisons would actually be less of a drain on the taxpaying, productive, non-criminal citizens.
I'm amazed that this story didn't get more attention until now. When I blogged about it a few weeks ago, the first person who commented on my story was inclined to take the side of HP.
In the wake of 9/11, the President asked for and got Congress to expand the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. The President said, as he signed the new legislation, that it gave him the powers he needed: "This new law I sign today will allow surveillance of all communication used by terrorists".
The FISA still required that a judge be in the loop, if only after the fact. It required at least a ghost of oversight and accountability. That is the provision the Administration immediately began to violate. No law authorized what's been going on. That's why archconservative Bruce Fein, Ronald Reagan's deputy Attorney General, said "Congress should insist the president cease the spying unless or until a proper statute is enacted or face possible impeachment ". The linked article also explains why the "inherent war powers" excuse is vaporous and flat wrong.
We were in a war when a White House team bugged Democratic Party headquarters for the 1972 election. Even Nixon never pretended that was legal: he instead obstructed the investigation.
But still, I don't think the threat of "financial restitution" would deter a rich person who's moreover in a position to get the company to pay her bills.
Well, doesn't anybody else get them impression that this is blown out of proportion? Sure, the people Dunn hired perhaps did something illegal (they are innocent until proven guilty) and perhaps Dunn should have tried another strategy at finding out the leaker in the boardroom...
Granted, Dunn did not capriciously wake up one day and decide to employ the use of investigators and their questionable tactics. There was a major problem inside the Board of Directors at HP. A director was leaking confidential information, which is a huge no-no...
But the AG of Cali puts forth millions in resources to investigate and prosecute what essentially is an internal dispute between high powered business people (the Directors). If anything, I get the impression that the AG is doing this mainly for publicity and political points. Really, would his office ever put forth this much effort to help those were fucked by real identity theft and the subsequent destruction of one's credit? If joe-schmoo middle class hard worker had his identity stolen, at most, there would be a cursory investigation, if at all...much less any prosecution...and certainly very little help at restoring one's credit history and reputation back.
That is one reason I see a problem at all of the attention this whole incident is getting...for one, it does not rise to the level of other corporate scandals that actually had a quantifiable financial impact of the markets and on society (people), i.e. Enron. At best, Dunn was trying to prevent, albeit using questionable methods, directors of the HP board from violating the rule of confidentiality of what goes on in the Board. Any information that was obtained was on the communications history of the board members (and others)...sure, as said before, the methods used were questionable...but it seems to me that the real focus should be on those who do not have the procedures in place to prevent such methods, i.e. pretexting, from working in the first place, say, the phone companies...
and in the big picture...so the AG gets a few convictions, so what, just means Corporate excecutives will be very careful next time...but such a conviction would do nothing to help those who are affected most by identity theft, that being us, the common people....
Let Dunn get fired, fine her, fine the board, fine the investigators.... does anybody ever think this will go to trial? hell no... again, too bad the AG does not put forth this much effort in the area of identity theft that would actually do some real good....
harumph!
White collar criminals need to have the law effect them like it does the rest of us. These type of people get 2 years of vacation for stealing more money than Dick n Bushwaker avoid paying in taxes. While Jose, Ronald, and Latefa spend most of their lives in and out of jail for selling drugs and sex to Dicks and Bushwakers.
Having to work for a living is the root of all evil.
You know, 12 years is too long a punishment for what they did. I think what will happen is that they will get probation and have to pay the $30,000. The problem is, it shouldn't be 30,000, because someone will just go into her purse, and say "do you have change for a 50[,000]?". To my way of thinking no jail time, 2 million in fines. Hit them in the wallet, where it hurts the most.
Mean what you say...say what you mean.
This whole thing is bogus. Here is a synopsis of what I have learnt from piecing the story togeather from snippets in lots of misleading articles and news stories.
First of all, pretexting telephone records is not yet illegal in the US as a whole - only pretexting of financial data.
That's why congress is currently holding hearing - they're trying to figure out if it should be illegal (bad timing HP!). So no time in a federal 'pound me in the arse' prison. This sort of data gathering has been a main stay of private investigators for a LONG time - it happens all the time. Probably should be illegal, and probably will be soon.
California seems to have their own local laws against fraud, and looks like this is what's coming into play here.
As for Dunn, who WAS NOT THE CEO (as so many people here have been wrongly saying), but who was the chair of the board of directors, what she did was to start an investigation into serious leaks of future strategies and plans by a member of the board (who seems to have got of very lightly !)
Since she is also on the board and had access to the leaked info, she herself potentially needed to be investigated too, so she handed the investigation to the legal department, who used some private investigators who were in a long time contract with HP.
The PI's then used their usual methods, and hunted down the leaker.
Do the charges against Dunn mean that anyone hiring a PI in california is now at serious risk of facing similar charges? Probably not - the AG is only after high profile targets to make a name for themselves.
Lessons to be learned :
1) If you hire a PI, make sure they only use 'legal' methods. Not knowing is not enough.
2) Don't investigate reporters, otherwise they'll write a whole load of misleading crap about it.
3) When you work for a company with a good reputation, you have to go overboard to make sure you don't sully that reputation.
I can see your point, and I don't necessarily disagree, but I feel I need to ask a question:
Is this because you want the perpetrator to be punished or do you want vengeance?
I ask because there are ways to punish someone that doesn't involve prison. I know that what these people are doing is bad, but prison isn't necessarily the answer. IMHO it would be better to hold them personally liable, and then liquedate their (or their families) assets to assist in paying out the corporate debts.
If the punishment for performing a criminally neglegent act is to loose every penny they own, you'll find many more executives will be much more careful to do the right thing.
"pretexting" == "going undercover" == "lying about one's identity"
When a private detective lies about his identity to discover the perpetrator of a corporate contract violation, it's a crime.
When a private detective lies about his identity to discover the perpetrator of marital infidelity, it's sleazy.
When a reporter lies about his identity to discover legally private information, it's a scoop.
When a policeman lies about his idenity to discover the activities of "innocent until proven guilty" suspects, he's a hero.
When a government agent lies about his identity to discover terrorist activities, nobody knows.
Taxation without representation is tyranny! Statehood for DC, Puerto Rico, Virgin Islands & Pacific Territories!