HP CEO Allowed 'Sting' on CNet reporter 145
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."
WOW (Score:2, Funny)
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Just following the example set by Bush and his cronies.
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Just following the example set by Bush and his cronies.
Nah, the government *hates* it when other people horn in on their business.
PARENT IS NOT A TROLL (Score:2, Insightful)
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We are reading about it. There are Congressional hearings (which may not be criminal presecution but is an effective way to bankrupt you with legal fees) and the CA GA is investigating for criminal charges. Yeah, scott free.
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Re:WOW (Score:4, Insightful)
What boggles my mind is that you're currently moderated as funny, not the +1 eerie we're all feeling about this.
Companies illegally spying on people is something straight out of a cyberpunk novel or something. It scares the crap outta me, because if nobody gets into actual legal trouble over this, the next time a company does it, people will just start going "Oh, that old thing", and turn the channel.
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Um... they didn't get away with it.
I don't know how often this sort of thing happens, but when the cabal announcd what they'd done -- the results of their 'investigation' -- one of the board members (Perkins) blew the whistle and before long, all the major players were indicted for felonies, with their careers in ruins.
Re:Quite Believable -Slap on the Wrist (Score:2, Informative)
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
Don't put the blame on Hurd. (Score:4, Informative)
Just because he approved the action to sting the reporter, he didn't necessairily know what the means were.
Re:Don't put the blame on Hurd. (Score:4, Informative)
From TFA:
Re:Don't put the blame on Hurd. (Score:5, Funny)
Hunsaker proxy? (Score:2)
Reality is getting a bit too creepy for me... Hudsucker Proxy [imdb.com]
Re:Don't put the blame on Hurd. (Score:4, Insightful)
Absolutely put the blame on Hurd. (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
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c)trust that your managment skill that got you the position has enabled you to trust the delegation of this job to people who are competent to handdle it in a manor you see fit.
D) none of the above ????
e) profit!!
The big problem with this (and government positions as well) is that the people in charge believe they have the best pepple availible to delegate authority and responcibility too. Often this is because they do not know how to handdle it themselves. When these people embarrass the administ
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CEOs don't know about these things, they know how to get a hold of people who do. Thats why they are the CEO and not the security personel. You cannot expect them to know that tracking an email ment trying to trick a reporter into opening a trojaned attachment to see were it anded up. Now if they did something wrong, as
What kind of strange ethics are those? (Score:2)
Funny, I thought deception, fraud, and outright lying were wrong from the get-go. Now apparently the only thing that's wrong is HOW you go about deceiving, defrauding, and lying. If you do it properly, it's not wrong. Silly me.
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Deception, fraud, and outright lying aren't always "wrong from the get-go," either. For example, if a nutcase with a machete comes to my house and asks to se
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Murder is "wrong", and is illegal pretty much everywhere that has a functioning government.
However, for better or worse (maybe "better and worse" is a better way of putting it), soldiers and even the police are given the power and authority to use deadly force; not all circumstances where someone kills someone else is "murder". Note that the US government o
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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.
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God forbid an executive be responsible for actions they approved.
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I think though if you say "Just don't tell me HOW you plan to sting the reporter, I don't want to know", there's an implicit order to do whatever you deem necessary, legal or otherwise, just don't tell me about it. You should be held accountable for that as well.
In a few month's we'll all forget anyway, and Patricia Dunn will become Chairman again.
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Seriously if something needs to be approved by the CEO, that means that to do his job, the CEO should know exactly what's implied by his approval. The CEO does not approve the hiring of a new Janitor or the number of printers to buy in Alaska branch. The CEO personally approves "important" decisions. If he just sign everything his PA gives him, that makes him a moron
Reversal of watergate (Score:2, Funny)
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If you really want to carry the analogy all the way through, then it will simply require yet another reasonably high-level whistleblower (like a Deputy Chief of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, for example) to leak vital information on actionable offenses. Watergate had its Deep Throat, after all.
If this happens, though, use of "gate" as a suffix is strictly forbidden, because that's just silly.
Re:Reversal of watergate (Score:5, Funny)
I think they've been following that rule for a while now. Notice how there's been no "investigate" for a long time...
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The correct usage for -gate is only for a Republican(or sometimes conservative) scandal. HP is neither therefore -gate would not be correct.
Incidently the suffix for a Democrat(or sometimes liberal) scandal is very arcane (due to media bias against reporting and spiking of those stories), but is -aquiddick.
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Perhaps you somehow missed the part of the GP post that read, "when will they turn their high powered invest-i-scopes back onto politicians," and therefore subsequently missed the point.
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Herd It, Dunn It -gate?
Nothing beats the Microsoft monopoly scandals - what were those called? Oh yeah, bill-gates
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Why would you want to investigate Congress?
Corporate America IS Congres, and have the real power.
Duh!
-Hack
email tracer? (Score:1)
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Easy (Score:3, Informative)
And yes, spammers use this to see if someone accessed their emails.
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That's why I don't view/send HTML mail...I go plain text.
Even on webmail accounts, I set them all to not load images unless I ok it.
I thought that was pretty much common sense??
Yes (Score:1)
But the story isn't targeting them, it's targeting people who probably don't know or care about that sorta thing.
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I always disable javascript for anthing that doesn't NEED it.
finally, I use ELM - good old ascii email (when I'm on my unix box). image preview? pffft! yeah, right. only if the 'image' is in vt100 escape sequences
If the MUA is retarded enough to run Javascript (Score:2)
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You would simply have the E-mail with an HTML attachment that referenced a web image or page somewhere ('img src="". Just a one pixel transparent image would do the trick. The filename would be so obscure, no web spider or wandering web user would find it.
Once the image was referenced, the sender would know the IP address of the computer that accessed the page.
Well Executed Plan (Score:5, Insightful)
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The Sting (Score:2, Funny)
Why are supposedly smart people so stupid? (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
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They could have been evil but legal (Score:2)
There's the risk of that technique failing if you try it on an ethical computer industry journalist (stop laughing so hard! You're turning blue! Take a long deep breath before you faint!).
Ah, Corporate Heirarchy (Score:2)
Well I guess it's "better" than BushCo etc spying on all of our phones, but at least they can pretend that's for the greater good...
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If this was the only reason I felt this way, I think you'd be absolutely right. However, I think that I have seen so many cases of small and medium-scale abuse of power at school and at my various places of employment, and even among my peers... it's a pattern to me, and to be honest, I have a hard time imagining having all of that power and responsibility and not tempted to do a few questionable things
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I've got, oh, about 600 posts here on slashdot. Find one where I blame everything, most things, or even a lot of things on Bush. Bush is a symptom of a much greater problem, and I too am worried about people blaming him instead of fixing the root problems (ignorant voters, campaign financing, etc blah blah).
The Bush administration has admitted to this kind of monitoring. I don't know where you get your information abo
Irony (Score:2, Funny)
So what? (Score:1)
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Stealing peoples idenities and hacking into their computer systems to obtain private information is a crime. If they could find the leak using leaga
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Yeah, the price went up when Dunn said she was stepping down last week.
Re:So what? (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
printable page (Score:2)
Hmm (Score:5, Funny)
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How could this happen!? (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh . . . wait . . .
Nothing wrong with spying (Score:3, Insightful)
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
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True, but only after they shot all the redcoats.
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The colonies had a population of about three million at the time of the Revolution. It's estimated that about a third of them supported Britain. I don't know how actively Britain was working to undermine the States by the time the traitors to the Crown started writing up the Constitution (I think most of their efforts were devoted to naval harassment, which was a big cause for the War of 1812). But it wouldn't have been hard for the Founding Fathers to slip into the "We have enemi
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And any good defense team will make sure that does not happen. They would argue, and rightly so, that those jurors might be biased against the defendant.
these guys grow up in the Nixon white house ??? (Score:2)
I have to laugh at the heavy promotion HP is currently running about their Itanic server line, curiously named "Integrity."
folks, there is no integrity at HP when they are all about spies and lies.
Kenny Lay and Bernie Ebbers weren't evil enough to spy on employees, reporters, and each other on the board of directors, for God's sake. looks like all the h
So What's Acceptable? (Score:3, Interesting)
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?
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In actuality, they're still able to make lots of money. If anything, all the grist for the rumor mill serves to keep the fanchildren running in circles. I doubt leaks are nearly as important as most people think. The reaction you often get to corporate leaks has less to do with the actual damage done, and everything to do wi
Not at all. (Score:2)
There was NOTHING wrong with investigating the outsiders involved with the leaks. Even (especially) if they were reporters.
What WAS wrong was USING ILLEGAL MEANS to do the investigation.
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Unfortunate Ad Placement in TFA (Score:1)
I wonder... (Score:1)
sting != crime (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
It's just rich spying on rich (Score:2)
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None. You should have bought Sun or Dell. I find HP's behavior disconcerting as well. I don't really care about the legality of it, but it does give HP a bad image in the eyes of its customers. An intelligent company would not have taken such risks with such minimal gains, it's just bad busi
anyone else tired of this? (Score:1)
They may as well...
I'm a bit tired of hearing about this. The issue has very few implications beyond HP.
On the one hand, If someone is leaking sensitive info, the Board has a responsibilty to stop the leak.
On the other hand, they need to do it legally.
I'm not convinced anyone but the investigators broke any law and I'm not convinced that the people who hired the investigators should be held
An aside: pretexting (Score:1)
Elmer Fudd vs Shareholder Value (Score:2)
HP's Dunn resigns immediately: "code of conduct" (Score:3, Informative)
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.
Illegal spying (Score:2)
All of this spying makes me nervous (Score:2)
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Re:If the government can do it... (Score:4, Insightful)
Let the companies get away with it and it becomes a free-for-all privacy nightmare.
You're joking, right? (Score:5, Insightful)
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?
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This is highly inaccurate, and indicitive of how badly this whole situation has been reported.
There was no trojon horse, just an email formated in html which included weblinked images. Open the email, and your IP is logged.
Sounds horrible. So go talk to ebay, yahoo, just about every other company out there. This is so common it's pitiful. And any decent email client (like thunderbird)
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Also damaging to the company's internal structure.
A few years ago the company I was at was having trouble with leaks. It finally came to a head when a trade journal practically quoted the CEO's presentation to the company meeting verbatim.
Net result was that upper management STOPPED TELLING THE REST OF THE COMPANY EMPLOYEES ANYTHING AT ALL about the company's forward planning.
This caused all sorts of problems.
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There is a simple mechanism for doing this - file a notice with the SEC indicating that they suspect info is being disclosed in a manner not authorized by the company, and request an investigation. The SEC has the power of government to request warrants and perf
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Yes, but in a lawful way. The obligations to the shareholders stop at the point where laws are broken. I'd say the line is much sooner, but I suppose morality and profits are never a good mix. Nonetheless, you can't wave around this obligation word without acknowledging that the first obligation is to obey the law.
The only way that we'll end this sort of behavior is if we put people in jail. Fines ar
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I'd say that it would be legal under only a few sets of circumstances:
1. The owner of the phone signed a release allowing the phone company to release the information.
2. A court signed a warrant or subpoena for the necessary information, which was presented to the phone company. Said document would require some sort of probable cause and a limit of scope.
I can't think of any others. Just about anything else would probably be unethical at best - and almos
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it's all wrong, dammit (Score:2)
paranoia, spies, and lies is wrong, wrong, WRONG no matter who, when or why.
those HP folks must have been gorging on somebody's stash to risk the company because they don't like reading trade rags. if they don't like reading trade rags, then geez, get real, don't read 'em. drone on with your little laser pointers and bul