Between the Lines Of HP's Spy Scandal
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Hewlett-Packard Co.'s media-leak investigation went forward despite warnings from HP security personnel that the tactics used were "probably illegal" and should be stopped, according to documents collected for today's congressional hearing on the scandal.
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You'd have pretexted it HP - which faces US federal and state investigations for spying on board members and journalists - is co-sponsoring an award for "privacy innovation".â¦
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The man could be a link between Hewlett-Packard and detective agencies in Boston and Florida hired to ferret out a leaker of company information.
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(InfoWorld) - Last year's HP Technology Forum was chased out of New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina. This year, storm clouds of a different sort hang over the event. As an estimated 6,000 attendees converge on Houston for the annual Hewlett-Packard user conference, the subject on many minds is the one the company is most loathe to discuss: theÂ shakeup of HP's boardÂ and theÂ prospect of criminal chargesÂ related to a spying scandal. The California Attorney General and a Congressional committee are among the institutions probing HP's possibly illegal methods of investigating news leaks from its board. HP has until Tuesday to respond to an invitation from the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee of the Energy and Commerce Committee for HP's Chairman Patricia Dunn and General Counsel Ann Baskins to testify at a Sept. 28 hearing in Washington. But at the Technology Forum, a gathering of HP user groups, partners and other vendors, HP is focusing on its business success, which is considerable. With revenue, earnings and stock price all resurgent in the last year, HP CEO Mark Hurd could rightly say, "Pay no attention to that prosecutor behind the curtain," when he delivers a keynote address on Sept. 18. In the quarter ended July 31, HP's earnings-per-share (EPS) topped analysts' estimates at $0.52 on 5 percent revenue growth to $21.9 billion, compared to the year ago quarter. Across many of its business lines, HP, of Palo Alto, California, has gained on rivals, said industry analyst Rob Enderle. HP personal computer sales have grown with its "the computer is personal again" marketing campaign, Enderle noted. IBMÂ sold its personal computer businessÂ to Lenovo Group, in 2005, and Dell has suffered negative publicity from the AugustÂ recall of 4.1 million fire-prone batteriesÂ in Dell laptops. In storage, HP closed the market share gap with EMC in second quarter numbers released Aug. 29 by research firm IDC. With EMC's 20 percent share, based on unit sales, to HP's 19.3 percent, the two are in a "statistical tie" said Brad Nisbet, an analyst with IDC. "HP has been executing well under new management," Nisbet said, referring to Hurd, CEO since March 2005. In servers, HP is a strong second to IBM, according to IDC market share numbers, but has made some errors, said Enderle. It still is using Intel's Itanium processor in its high-end Integrity servers, which rivals aren't embracing. Gartner research shows that 90 percent of the Itanium chips shipped in the first quarter of this year ran on HP servers; neither Dell nor IBM build Itanium computers. Technology Forum organizers get tight-lipped when the conversation shifts to the board scandal. "That's HP's business," said Nina Buik, vice president of Encompass, one of the HP user groups planning the event. "We're not focused on those issues unless it impacts the technology." And as long as the scandal doesn't touch Hurd personally, the customer satisfaction should be unaffected, said Crawford Del Prete, senior vice president of research at IDC. . "I don't think [the scandal] is a drag on the company's success," he said. "I have not found one customer who said 'I'm not going to do business, or I am concerned about doing business, with Hewlett-Packard as a result of this.'" HP Technology forum runs from Sunday to Thursday this week.
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Web bug uncovered under Congressional spotlight Congressional hearings have revealed how HP made controversial use of email tracking technology in an attempt to identify the source of a board-level mole.â¦
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By AP Wire Services  SAN JOSE, Calif.  -- Congress and federal investigators on Monday entered the fray surrounding Hewlett-Packard Co.'s possibly illegal probe of media leaks, as the company's board met to discuss the fate of its embattled chairwoman.    With the FBI, the U.S.
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By Clint Swett, The Sacramento Bee, Calif.  Sep. 15--The most high-profile casualties of the boardroom spying scandal  at Hewlett-Packard Co. are the two directors who resigned their posts on  Tuesday.
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Hurd silent on growing scandal HP's spy fiasco went from bad to catastrophic yesterday, as the company admitted to having tapped the phone logs of nine reporters.â¦
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New reports implicate HP chief more deeply than previously thought.
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By Ian Watson  THE scandal that has erupted following the disclosure that Hewlett-Packard had been spying on some of its directors now appears to have  enveloped chief executive Mark Hurd.
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(InfoWorld) - The U.S. Department of Justice is asking questions about conduct by Hewlett-Packard Co. that has embroiled the technology company in controversy. HP acknowledged in a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filing Monday that it isÂ cooperating with an inquiryÂ by the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of California intoÂ possibly illegal tactics used by investigators hired by HP to investigate news leaks from the company's board members. HP described the U.S. Attorney's inquiry as "informal" and said the questions are similar to those asked by the attorney general of California. HP is based in Palo Alto, California. "We are cooperating fully with these inquiries," HP said in its SEC filing. The probes are looking into the use of "pretexting" to search phone records to determine which board members may have been talking to reporters. The phone records of nine reporters from various news organizations were also obtained to determine who their sources from within HP might have been on stories about the company. Pretexting refers to posing as a phone company customer to get access to personal records. California Attorney General Bill Lockyer says a crime was committed in connection with the pretexting, but his office is still investigating what crime and by whom. The scandal has brought pressure on HP Chairman Patricia Dunn, who ordered the investigation, but claims she didn't know the outside investigative firm hired to trace the leaks would engage in pretexting. HP's board is meeting Monday for the second straight day to discuss its response to the controversy. Former HP director Thomas Perkins, who quit in protest in May because of the way the investigation was conducted, called on Dunn to resign. His statement, released Saturday by his attorney, was prompted by Dunn's comments in media interviews last week in which she alleged that it was Perkins who wanted "more aggressive measures" used to investigate the leaks, including use of lie detectors on board members. "I am saddened, but not surprised, that Patricia Dunn has attacked me personally for doing my job. I acted not from any ill will toward Ms. Dunn but to protect the best interests of HP. I think the past months and days have shown that those interests are best served if Ms. Dunn would resign from the board," said Jenkins in his statement. The U.S. Federal Communications Commission also is investigating HP. The FCC reportedly sent a "letter of inquiry" to AT&T Inc. asking how its customer phone records may have been accessed, according to an Associated Press report. An FCC spokesman could not confirm that. HP's internal probe identified director George Keyworth as the source for a CNet Networks Inc. story about HP's strategy, which the technology news Web site posted in January. He refused to resign when asked to doÂ so by Dunn in May, but theÂ board has since voted not to renominate him to his seat. Â
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Does the Wal-Mart eavesdropping debale have the potential to be this year's HP scandal? A former IT security staffer for the retailer evaluates what might have happened.
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(InfoWorld) - Huge, ugly scandals have a way of planting new terms in the lexicon. Consider the way the Watergate affair of the early 1970s made -gate an all-purpose suffix denoting scandal, or the way last yearâs Sony digital rights management imbroglio made ârootkitâ an unlikely term heard around the dinner table. Thanks to Hewlett-Packardâs daring board of directors, weâve got another one: âpretexting,â which describes the technique of impersonating someone else to obtain personal information. In the case of HP, that personal information was the private phone records of board members and journalists, unknowingly caught up in an all-out effort by HP Chairwoman Pattie Dunn to plug press leaks at the company. Last week, HP announced a board shakeup to try to put the whole mess behind it, but it may be looking over its shoulder for some time, experts say. Dunn will relinquish her chair to CEO and President Mark Hurd in January. The scandal created two other board vacancies: director Thomas Perkins quit in protest last May over the companyâs investigation; and director George Keyworth, identified as the source of the leak, resigned the same day as Dunnâs announcement. At print time, Californiaâs Attorney General Bill Lockyer said that the state was working with authorities in Massachusetts and that he had the evidence he needs to indict people connected to the pretexting scandal both inside and outside of HP. The scandal is a teachable moment for American business, said Kirk O. Hanson, executive director of the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University. âIt is a cautionary tale about how companies conduct investigations into employee conduct and give direction to outside vendors,â Hanson said. This case will help them clarify what they can and cannot do to protect their interests. âExpect the word pretext to begin showing up in corporate handbooks,â Hanson said.
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HP's boardroom scandal has cast a new light on the dirty deeds of data traffickers. James Rapp used to be one of them.
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Not so Agile Business Comment HP grows leakier by the hour: today's Pretexting Scandal episode, brought to you by an unnamed source of the NY Times reveals that the company "conducted feasibility studies on planting spies in news bureaus of [CNET and The Wall Street Journal] as part of an investigation of leaks from its board". Check out those janitors, before they check you out.â¦
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By Damon Darlin and Matt Richtel  John Markoff contributed reporting.  *  Pressure is mounting on the Hewlett-Packard chief executive, Mark Hurd, to explain what appears to have been a greater role in the company's spying operation than was initially indicated.
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Here's a look at the unfolding Hewlett-Packard Co. boardoom leak scandal, including information on what happened, why, who's involved and what is known so far.