HP's Dunn Stepping Down 301
XJHardware writes "Yahoo news is reporting that Patricia Dunn is stepping down from the chair of HP." From the article: "Hurd will retain his existing positions as chief executive and president and Dunn will remain as a director after she relinquishes the chair on Jan. 18. 'I am taking action to ensure that inappropriate investigative techniques will not be employed again. They have no place in HP,' Hurd said in a statement. Dunn apologized for the techniques used in the company's probe, which included 'pretexting' in which private investigators impersonated board members and journalists to acquire their phone records."
Pretexting?? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Head of Global Ops Too (Score:5, Insightful)
By the way, isn't this sort of thing kind of illegal? Shouldn't people be going to jail?
Re:Pretexting (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Pretexting?? (Score:4, Insightful)
I'd go for "identity theft", personally. It's pretty accurate, but also sounds like Something We Should Fear(TM), as opposed to "pretexting", which sounds Naughty But Only A Little Bit(TM).
Hooray! (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't know if it was a King Richard II thing ("Will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest?") or if it was a cold-blooded decision ("Commander, tear this ship apart, and bring me the passengers... ahem, I mean, dig up anything and everything you can on whoever seems a likely target."), but either way there was no way that HP could have kept any customer or shareholder faith with her remaining at the helm.
What I find interesting is that the Justice department is checking this "pretexting" business out. Are they interested in prosecuting it... or duplicating it?
Screw That (Score:2, Insightful)
Now ... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Head of Global Ops Too (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Pretexting?? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm rather pleased that they have failed to pull the wool over anyone's eyes, but the fact that the word keeps getting repeated is bothersome. The news outlets should only be using that word in the context of explaining Dunn's lame attempt to cover up for fraud.
Re:Pretexting?? (Score:5, Insightful)
I could write volumes on things that have happened in my career, but this HP debacle takes the cake. And the thing is, they feel entirely in their rights while they were doing it, after they were doing it and on up until they realized that they really had to explain themselves. They are confessing now because they got caught, not because they really felt it to be wrong. Thus are the ills of capitalism.
As a wise man once said: "Capitalism is the notion that evil men, doing evil things, will bring about the greatest good...." Or something to that effect....
Re:Pretexting?? (Score:5, Insightful)
Capitalism does not require people act unethically, illegally or immorally. My fear is that people like you will simply use this situation to "prove" how capitalism is bad (and why whatever brand of economics you prefer is "right"), rather than understand it for what it is: PEOPLE that are bad, and would be just as bad, in any other economic system.
Another pisser is that by blaming capitalism, you are releasing her from fault, as it is "capitalism" that is at fault, and not an overzealous and unethical person, Ms. Dunn. She shares the blame with no one.
Could be radioactive (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Pretexting?? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:No Big Surprise (Score:4, Insightful)
Two words: Book Deal
This is America, where we celebrate those that do wrong and actually had to make a LAW that says if you murder or rape someone, you can't make money off any books/tv deals (but other crimes, and it's ok). Think about that, that means that people will buy books written by these criminals, and make the criminals potentially RICH, if you don't make it illegal. Might even get a "made for TV movie" out of it.
Re:High Crimes (Score:1, Insightful)
In some theoretical sense, no, they're not royalty. But in all practicality, corporate executives are. They're the ones who have access to money, often vast sums of it. And in America, having enough money elevates you to a position much akin to royalty. You can partake in activities that would result in severe punishment to less-wealthy individuals. You can be excused from any blame if you are caught. Such examples can be found many times over even just the past decade.
Re:Head of Global Ops Too (Score:1, Insightful)
It has nothing to do with capitalism (Score:4, Insightful)
Whoever said that was a fool, not a wise man. Capitalism has never been anything to do with right, wrong, good or evil, it's about self interest. It's human nature and will happen no matter what type of society we have. What do you propose as an alternative?
Re:Pretexting?? (Score:3, Insightful)
Winston Churchill put it best: "The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries."
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Pretexting?? (Score:2, Insightful)
But why mention capitalism? (Score:3, Insightful)
The problem is that you mentioned capitalism, as though you were saying something distinctive about it, or that different economic systems might not have powerful people who think they can get away with being assholes.
Imagine if I went to the zoo and dropped 16-ton weights on all the animals. They all died. Then I said, "The problem with parrots is that they fail to resist a 16-ton weight." It sounds like I'm talking about parrots, but parrots actually have nothing to do with it. The real issue is the 16-ton weight.
Instead of "the ills of capitalism" it would have been more precise and less silly to say something along the lines of "the ills of human nature" or "some people are such assholes" or "power corrupts".
Some of the ills of capitalism is that people are mortal, there is evil in the world, and we still don't have "Mr. Fusion" under the hoods of all our cars. ;-)
Re:Pretexting?? (Score:3, Insightful)
And she owns that.
Capitalism has a flaw in that it "prefers" ( as an
emergent behaviour ) people without character for high
positions like this. Because those people will do
whatever it takes, regardless of of ethics or legality,
and that makes more money.