Reporter's Story — How HP Kept Tabs On Me

Carl Bialik from WSJ writes "An outside lawyer working for H-P, John Schultz, yesterday told Wall Street Journal reporter Pui-Wing Tam how H-P's investigators collected information on her for a year, scoping out her trash and compiling a dossier on her phone calls. From Tam's article about her time spent, unwittingly, under surveillance: 'H-P's agents had my photo and reviewed videotaped footage of me, said Mr. Schultz, of the law firm of Morgan, Lewis & Bockius. They conducted "surveillance" by looking for me at certain events to see if I would show up to meet an H-P director. (I didn't.) They also carried out "pre-trash inspections" at my suburban home early this year, Mr. Schultz said. ... But what was surprising were the questions Mr. Schultz left unanswered: How did H-P's agents get my phone numbers in the first place? When did they review videotaped footage of me? Did their gumshoes park their cars outside my house at night? And what the heck is pre-trash inspection?'"

Comments

Stalking

[cdn-programmer]

Does this qualify as stalking? Perhaps corporate stalking?

Re:Stalking

[mabhatter654]

why should a high profile press reporter have any more "privacy" than Britney Spears? After all, look how much stuff the tabloids get to publish legally! Don't think it's not legal... there just isn't any money in tracking random reporters like they do hollywood stars.. unless a big corp is bankrolling it. Think of the "hidden cameras" and "riveting exposes" you see on the boob tube and supermarket news racks.. YES, they can do that to you too! Don't like people randomly reading your emails to teenage boys? Don't like that bad day you had and hopped in the car wihtout the carseat? How about that skinny dip you didn't think anybody knew about? not so funny any more is it.. to bad it's part of the game every body pays to watch.

incomplete disclosure

[strspn]

I read the article in the Journal this morning. What really pissed me off was the way that all the really uncomfortable details from powerpoint slides that HP had already turned over to Congress were excluded from the materials provided to Ms. Tam in person. For example, the fact that they not only pulled her phone records, but those of everyone she had been calling and taking calls from on her cellphone. This was while she was planning a sister's wedding.

Only the beginning...

[10100111001]

If the power of corporations continues to grow unchecked, we could come upon a time when some corporations monitor their employees 24 hours a day, in there homes, at play, wherever, and to do anything outside of the company rules would mean termination. It would be in the company's best interest to do so.

Sort of like how they can do drug testing now.

Re:Only the beginning...

[ZWithaPGGB]

This, along with all the other reasons trotted out daily in Dilbert, is why the large corporations can't invent anything. The best and brightest won't work for them. The "Search for Talent" was the cover sotry on last week's Economist. Too bad the corporate drones don't get that their risk averseness, in all things, is why they can't hire and retain the best and the brightest. Wait, I'm an entrepreneur, that means I get the smart ones that HP doesn't! Yippeeee!!!!

Foosball, blimps, bring your dog to work, and LAN parties for the gamers aren't frivolity, they help productivity, in my experience. Costs a lot less than hiring private eyes to just keep your employees HAPPY!!!

How many laws broken??

[necro2607]

heh. "The scandal, which became public last month, has spurred the departures of three executives and three H-P directors"

Departures..? What about criminal charges??!

"According to the California attorney general, H-P's investigators also used the last four digits of my Social Security number to impersonate me in order to obtain my phone records, a technique known as "pretexting.""

OK, if I'm not mistaken it's completely illegal to impersonate someone, and also, are phone records not considered "private" information? In such a case there's not only impersonation but right-to-privacy laws that have been treaded upon...

Hacking, anyone?

[whoever57]

Bryan Wagner of Littleton, Colo., allegedly used the last four digits of my Social Security number and my home phone number to set up an AT&T online account for my local phone service.

How is this different from the "social engineering" that Kevin Mitnick did? He phoned people and used pretexting to gain access to computer systems. Interesting that when someone rich and powerful does it, it is called "pretexting", yet, when an ordinary person does it, it is called "hacking".

Um, no.

[Darlantan]

This is one of those points where we don't need more legislation, we need people to educate themselves and pick up the responsibility for their own actions. It's not the government's problem if you don't shred sensitive documents, and it shouldn't be. It's not like there is a shortage of cheap paper shredding machines -- you have hands, they can do the job if you're really cheap. If I toss papers with information on my bank account out without shredding, I don't expect them to be any more secure than leaving my ATM card sitting on the sidewalk.

Laws aren't going to fix things here, they just give us a method of reacting. The old saying "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure." still applies. Suck it up and take some responsibility for yourself, stop shovelling it off on the government.