HP Spying More Elaborate Than Reported 131
theodp writes "The NY Times reports the secret investigation of news leaks at HP was more elaborate than previously reported. In addition to illicitly gathering private phone records almost from the start, detectives reportedly followed and videotaped some directors and journalists, were given photos of reporters to help identify them, and tried to plant surveillance software on a CNET reporter's computer. HP also fessed up to spying on its own spokesman, whose personal phone records were taken."
More News (Score:1, Funny)
More at eleven.
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I agree. We should force them to rely upon an HP Omnibook for their daily tasks.
If I have to suffer, I feel better knowing its a shared experience.
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Who does HP think they are? (Score:5, Funny)
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Now quit reading from the Fox News scorecard, and start thinking for yourself.
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Let me see you stripped...
Let me see you make de-cisions
without your tele-visions...
Let me see you stripped...
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I did. I bought a new HP OfficeJet in 2004.
News Flash... (Score:2, Funny)
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Well, we COULD answer that question, but then we'd have to kill you.
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Will anyone care? (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm guessing not.
There will be a few people punished in a very public fashion, while behind the scenes this sort of behavior becomes commonplace.
Maybe it's just Monday Morning talking here, but I hope I'm wrong.
Re:Will anyone care? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Will anyone care? (Score:5, Interesting)
I am working on this type of migration right now. We are moving all applications to one vendor's hardware platform (and virtualizing it all). Our timeline on this project is 3 years. We could complete the task much more quickly, but we are being hamstrung by customer internal processes.
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We're moving from HP to Toshiba, but for capitalistic rather than politic reasons. Who cares what HP does to deliver the bottom line? That's their business.* The problem is that the bottom line isn't good enough, and the Toshiba all-in-ones we've gotten are superior to HP. When it comes to end-users, the politics are irrelevant when compared to the price tag and the quality.
*This is assuming a capitalistic standpoint inherent in most (sic) US businesses. Surely some businesses will care about politics, but
Re:Will anyone care? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Will anyone care? (Score:5, Insightful)
In something like this, I don't think you should blame the whole company and try to take it out on HP as a whole. The perpetrators in this instance are quite identifiable, and it is they who should be taken to task.
What should we expect of HP? More oversight in how they handle their internal leak hunts, etc. Also, to do some work cleaning up their image after this and distancing themselves from those involved. Well, and other things. My point is, why would it make sense to try and punish the company as a whole for this?
And no, I don't work for HP. It just doesn't make sense to me to blame this on the whole company, as there are tons of great people that work there.
Re:Will anyone care? (Score:5, Insightful)
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And the guilty members are stepping down and also under investigation by law enforcement officials. What more do you want? Perhaps you'd like to completely ruin HP so that they can lay off more employees? Personally, I'd be satisfied to see the guilty spend some time in prison and pay heavy fines that take a sizeable chunk out of their personal assets. And I doubt any sane company would ever put them in a leadership position again.
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So far I've seen only one off the board, and another given a move (might even be considered a promotion). There certainly were more than 2 board members who knew what was going on (if not, there certainly should have been, and the others should be removed for negligence).
Several folks should go to jail on this one if the reports are true and they went as far as 'hacking' journalists c
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RTFA! You apparently haven't been paying attention to this story. The board members were the ones being spied on, not the ones doing the spying. They most certainly did NOT know what was going on -- the chairwoman instigated the operation secretly, to determine which board members were leaking to the press.
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And the guilty members are stepping down and also under investigation by law enforcement officials. What more do you want?"
Remember that GP posted that "Lets note that the it was select individuals who were doing this... and not all of HP."
GP makes it sound like it was Bob in accounting, Mary in sales, and perhaps VP Gary who had knowledge about it.
This was just a few 'rogue employees', these were members of the board. The lea
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Corporate culture is starts from the top and moves its way down throughout the organization. Why would I give my business to a company whose executives illegally monitor their own board members and try to illegally spy on journalists. If they're willing to do this to their own, as a customer should I expe
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If spying on board members were part of conducting business, you'd be right. But this isn't part of "conducting business"--it doesn't involve customers or society at large--it involves board members and their media contacts.
HP customers don't care much because they haven't been directly harmed. It would be different if HP had, say, shipped their PCs with spyware: in that case, the customers would have been harmed, an
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Re:Will anyone care? (Score:5, Insightful)
We don't admonish people's hands when they steal, we do so to the whole person (and we address our comments to the head, or boardroom in this case).
I agree that the specificly guilty parties should wear this, but corporations cannot have it both ways; either they're an entity, responible for all their actions, or they're a bunch of people in the same building, and they can start asking favours of their congressman individually.
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Yes, people are being pursued by law enforcement except you know they are the ones thrown to the wolves that are going to get it not
Re:Will anyone care? (Score:5, Interesting)
So, the roundup on punishments:
Chairwoman moves down one slot, keeps money, perks and most of her power.
CEO moves up to chairman
Director (read: good guy) who resigned out of sense of duty: still gone from boardroom
Number of directors on the board, reduced
What should happen? I'm not sure as I don't have all the facts and I don't claim to be a lawyer. As a layman, I would expect Chairwoman Dunn to lose her seat on the board and forfeit any unvested compensation. I would hope Mr Hurd would lose his position on the board as well. The board should bring back the resigned member. The fellow who was leaking info should be removed from the board and lose compensation same as Ms Dunn. HP and other companies need strong boards. HP once had a reputation for good governance. Let's hope that returns.
BTW - I don't work for HP or really care too much about them. No emotions or money invested.
the DA should care (Score:2)
Spying on people is illegal; the people involved should be charged and tried criminally. If found guilty, they should go to jail.
The failure to act is not on the part of HP (they have done all they should), it's on the part of the DA.
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-Eric
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Corporate Spying is not new (Score:2)
A much more interesting question is, will anyone do the research neccessary to establish whether these relationships to investigators was started with the board-leak or were they previously existing and established relationships. My point? In case it isn't clear from my first sentance, my point is th
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Now I'm wondering if my printer is mysteriously sending all my scanned docs to the feds when I sleep at night.
Better slap a network sniffer on that baby.
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Well, yes, that is the message. That's what the law says -- it is the company's job to protect trade secrets. If they want to keep it secret, they get limited legal protection should a leak occur. The courts are not the place to go and complain that it is hard to develop a major new product in secret, and the courts are not in the busine
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I stopped buying HP printers and products years ago when their quality slid as their costs increased.
What may be as meaningful is that when buying mutual funds recently I avoided any that had HP in their lists of large holdings. I wonder how many others avoid stocks, directly or through mutual funds, that contain the stocks of company's with scandals attached to their names, and if that reticence affects share prices? (My thinking is that when demand drops, so does the share price.)
Great Article in Fortune (Score:2)
The sad part... she is no dummy and covered her tracks completely. The firm they hired to do the dirty work will take the fall.
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They care and a boycot won't help. (Score:2)
The interesting question is, will anyone care enough about this to stop doing business with HP?
Busines harm, in this case is counter productive. The guilty have been embarrassed and might even be punished. No one wants to be the next Newsweek posterboy of corporate corruption and the behavior will be avoided. Anyone who tries a stunt like this gains little but puts themselves at the mercy of anyone who finds credible evidence. Corporate spying is not a core part of HP's business so crushing HP will on
wrong response (Score:2)
I'm all for holding companies responsible for corporate misconduct. But this wasn't corporate misconduct, it was individual misconduct. The proper course of action is to take the responsible individuals to court. They should face hefty fines and jail time.
Common (Score:2, Interesting)
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first we've heard about it makes me think that, in fact, this is
an unusual practice.
Time will tell.
How bad does it need to be? (Score:5, Interesting)
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That is what they should do, but, in the world of corporate governance, that is not what happens. Remember, after HP fired Carly Fiorina, they gave her a $21 Million severance package (LINK [com.com]). And, Carly pretty much ran HP in to the ground. While Dunn's actions are arguably worse (both in terms of HP's reputation and legality)
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Who needs "reality tv"?
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But, she didn't deserve a $21 Million parachute, either.
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Alright (Score:2)
The sad part is the monitoring of a few board members is, and likely will continue to get more coverage/outrage than the Bush administration doing this to the whole country.
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-Eric
When will people admit it's fascism? (Score:3, Interesting)
This is the sort of activity that became widespread during that period. Spying was omnipresent, be it on the street, at work, or while at restaurants. Collaboration between the elites of the business world the government allowed for this sort of privacy invasion to take hold, and further promoted it as time went on. Individual freedoms were thrown out "for the sake of the nation".
The very same appears to be happening in America and other "democratic" countries these days. On one hand, you have the government spying domestically on its own citizens (the whole NSA scandal, for instance). Security cameras are being installed all over the place, from street corners to ATMs. In some countries, the cameras apparently will have loudspeakers to direct the citizenry that are being observed. Now we find that the very same sort of actions are being taken by corporate executives. Soon enough that will translate down to regular workers. In short, it's a case of fascism much like Italy experienced in the mid-20th century.
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Irony in the details (Score:5, Funny)
According to TFA: "People briefed on HP's review of its internal investigation say that it was authorized by Dunn, the chairwoman, and put under the supervision of Kevin Hunsaker, a senior counsel who is the company's director of ethics."
How could it be otherwise?
A hidden gem indeed! (Score:3, Interesting)
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Logistical nightmare (Score:5, Funny)
"...and we at Hewlett Packard also regret using false pretenses to obtain the personal phone reacords of their spokesman, one Mr..... the freaking HELL?!"
Would you work for a company that does this? (Score:3, Interesting)
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Bene Packard (Score:1, Offtopic)
In a related story, HP has announced that they have embarked upon a thousands of generations long breeding program, for the purpose of creating a male who can be in all places at once, to ensure their total surveillance of all things.
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Do you have an aspirin?
A tough situation (Score:1)
Of course, on the other hand, the way this was handled by HP was totally out of hand. Young adults walking out of business school know that to hit somebody up with a wiretap is illegal and should not be done. How is it that the chairman and the head of their Ethics group don't? So those two should def
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This is such total crap! The whistleblower should be compensated. He helped shareholders find out that they were getting dicked. The criminal Dunn should not have been allowed to use the illegally obtained evidence to dump the whistleblower. He should at least be compensated as if he were a board member for the period of time a reasonable person would expect him to remain on
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In a sane world, Keyworth would be removed from the board, Perkins would get his position on the board back (or even better, promoted to Chairman), and Dunn wou
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the leaker only leaked stuff that was already
something that was either announced or going to
be announced publicly. I dont have a URL, unfortunately.
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They may know that it is illegal, I am not sure that they are taught that it should not be done. It appears that they are taught how to have illegal things done while still maintaining plausable deniability.
Overheard on the radio this weekend (Score:2)
"HP will be changing it's slogan from 'HP: Invent' to 'HP: Indict'"
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HP stopped inventing long ago (before adopting the "Invent" tagline, actually). It's time for a new slogan anyway.
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Good to see another Wait, wait, don't tell me listener in the house. :-)
Scandal goes higher than Dunn (Score:5, Funny)
According to this newly disclosed recording:
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..and neither of us was ever over Macho Grande.
-Eric
NY Times Article Link (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm still new enough here to hate when the
Oh, and enjoy the link to the print version of the article without ads
HP's own corporate rules say... (Score:5, Informative)
Web beacon, or Reaper exploit? (Score:2)
A web beacon would report back the IP address of HTTP requests to fetch the image. This would be really boring for systems behind a NAT firewall.
So, is this a f
planting software or web bug? (Score:1)
While this investigation as a whole seems abhorent, a web bug seems less invasive (and probably less illegal) than the implied act of installing spyware on someone elses's computer.
Only bad because they were execs? (Score:2)
But since this happened to a suit... all the other suits got scared and decided to attack?
Interesting.
A Royal Solution (Score:2)
Otherwise we're going to have to watch this thing unfold for months. Just end it now and let's all move on.
Familiar (Score:2)
Here's an article [bordc.org] on a bill immunizing the Bush Administration from prosecution for basically doing the same thing. Too bad HP can't call him up and ask to be included on the bill.
BTW, here's another article, this one by the ACLU [aclu.org] on exactly what the Cheney-Specter bill does.
Damn... (Score:2)