Verizon sues data brokers linked to HP probe
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Verizon Wireless  sued 20  unnamed data brokers for fraudulently obtaining private  telephone records belonging to Hewlett-Packard Co.   board members and journalists as part of an HP investigation  into boardroom leaks.
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(InfoWorld) - On the heels of a similarÂ suit filed Thursday by Verizon Wireless Inc., Cingular Wireless LLC on Friday suedÂ private investigators used by Hewlett-Packard Co. to obtain phone records of a CNET News.com journalist. Cingular filed suit in a U.S. District Court in Atlanta against Charles Kelly and CAS Agency Inc. alleging they used pretexting -- or pretending to be someone else to obtain phone records -- to get information from Cingular about customer Dawn Kamamoto, a CNET journalist that HP was investigating. Cingular also named "John Does 1-100" and "XYZ Corps. 1-100" in the suit to accommodate other private investigators that may not have been named who also were involved in obtaining information from Cingular, said company spokesman Mark Siegel. "Sometimes it's hard to identify who is in these companies and who runs them," he said "We [used those terms] to accommodate for the vagueness of the industry." During Congressional hearings Thursday about HP's investigation of journalists -- including Kamamoto and writers from the Wall Street Journal and BusinessWeek -- Kelly and CAS Agency were identified as investigators that HP used to obtain phone records information through pretexting, Siegel said. The defendants called customer service agents posing as Kamamoto to obtain her personal information, and also gained unauthorized access to her online account information, Cingular alleged in its filing. They then sold that information to HP. HP executives, including Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Mark Hurd, testified before the House Energy and Commerce Congressional Committee on Thursday about an investigation of journalists that took place in 2005 and earlier this year in an attempt to find out who at HP was leaking sensitive information to the press. The scandal has already forced Patricia Dunn to resign as HP's chairman and sparked investigations by the California attorney general and the U.S. House of Representatives. On Thursday, Verizon Wireless filed suit in New Jersey against investigators who used pretexting to obtain information about an HP director and that director's spouse, and then sold that information to HP. In its suit, Cingular is asking that a judge require the defendants to pay punitive damages to the company and be permanently restricted from: contacting Cingular for any reason, obtaining information about Cingular customers and advertising that they can obtain phone records from wireless companies about their subscribers. Cingular is also asking for the return of any information obtained about Cingular customers to the company. Cingular's Siegel said this is not the first time his company has filed suit against companies that have used pretexting to obtain customer information. "They call themselves data brokers -- we call them data burglars," he said. The company currently has several cases pending against other investigators who have used pretexting, which is not technically illegal, although Cingular believes it should be, Siegel added.
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A Georgia private eye involved in the Hewlett-Packard pretexting brouhaha is the target of a suit by Cingular. The company wants him to pay for obtaining customer info under false pretenses.
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Hewlett-Packard Co. HPQ.Nhas been   contacted by the U.S. attorney for the Northern District of   California regarding the company's probe into media leaks, the   company said in a regulatory filing made on Monday.
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Top executives of Verizon   Communications VZ.N, Sprint Nextel Corp. S.N, Cingular and   T-Mobile USA have been invited to testify Friday at a U.S.   House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing into the use of   deceptive measures to obtain personal information, known as   pretexting, the panel said on Monday.
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NEW YORK -- Investigators for Hewlett-Packard Co. sought private telephone records of board members while hunting for leaks to the media of confidential company information, the computer maker said in a regulatory filing Wednesday.
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Saying "those who crossed the legal line must be held accountable," California Attorney General Bill Lockyer today filed charges against former Hewlett-Packard Co. chairman Patricia Dunn, a former HP legal counsel and three private investigators involved in the company's boardroom leak probe.
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By MICHAEL LIEDTKE  SAN FRANCISCO - Hewlett-Packard Co.'s early efforts to plug a boardroom leak targeted the phone records of then-Chief Executive Carleton Fiorina, according to a source familiar with one of the investigations looming over the computer and printer maker.
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Investigators working on behalf of Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) masqueraded as telecom employees to obtain phone records of Verizon Communications (VZ) customers, BusinessWeek has learned.
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Vonage is set this week to appear in court to face charges that it has infringed upon patents owned by telecommunications giant Verizon.
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(InfoWorld) - A day after Hewlett-Packard Co. (HP)Â chairman Patricia Dunn promised to step down for her role in a spy scandal, the state of California is continuing its effort to indict her and the private investigators she used. Dunn's actions were not merely unethical but actually violated the law, and the state now has enough evidence to indict people both within HP and contractors outside the company, according to Thomas Dressler, a spokesman for California Attorney General Bill Lockyer. In her efforts to discover the source of press leaks about board deliberations,Â HP has acknowledged that Dunn hired a private investigation firmÂ to pose as the 10 suspected board members and journalists in order to convince the phone company to disclose private phone records. This is a practice known as pretexting. In an interview on The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer Tuesday, Lockyer said that under California law, people involved in the probe could be charged with crimes both for falsely taking another person's identity and for accessing computer records with their personal information. Dressler confirmed Lockyer's comments. HP hired investigation firm Security Outsourcing Solutions Inc. (SOS), which shares its Boston offices with a law firm called Bonner, Kiernan, Trebach and Crociata, according toÂ a report in The New York Times that sited sources close to the case. The Times also said that the California and Massachusetts attorney generals were working together on the case. Dressler declined to confirm the name of the security firm HP hired, or whether California and Massachusetts are working together on the case. "I'm not going to deny it, but beyond what the attorney general said I'm not going to comment. It's not prudent for prosecutors to mention names before bringing charges," Dressler said. A call to SOS on Wednesday was answered by a woman who recited the name of the law firm, but denied the two businesses were connected. She declined to give her name, and said that no one was immediately available for comment. Ironically, an SOS newsletter posted on the firm's Web site warns corporate executives that their privacy is at risk since their Web surfing and e-mail records can be traced by Internet browsers and cookies. It advises clients to shield their identities by using a Web site called Anonymizer.com. Â
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Dunn whines The muck continues to thicken around HP's spy scandal. Verizon has filed a lawsuit against 20 unnamed data brokers, accusing them of helping out with the phone fraud used in HP's investigation. Separately, former HP Chairman Patricia Dunn has chastised HP for "inaccuracies" the company published in a recent regulatory filing.â¦
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By Stephen Foley in New York  Hewlett-Packard is facing a federal investigation into whether the company broke the law when the computer manufacturer obtained directors' and journalists' phone records as part of its attempt to hunt down the source of boardroom leaks.
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Hewlett-Packard Co. HPQ.N said on   Sunday that it used improper methods to access phone records of   two employees, including its own spokesman, in an internal   probe into leaks to the media.
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(InfoWorld) - Two U.S. Congressmen have asked Hewlett-Packard Co. (HP) Chief Executive Officer Mark Hurd to explain why he sold US$1.37 million worth of HP stock just before theÂ company's spying scandal became public. Congressmen John Dingell and Mark Stupak, both Michigan Democrats, sent a letter to Hurd Wednesday requesting an explanation and asking for a response by Dec. 21. "We look forward to responding to the committee's inquiry," said HP spokeswoman Emma Wischhusen. Both congressmen are ranking members of the investigations subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which in September held hearings on the HP pretexting scandal. In his testimony, Hurd apologized for the investigation HP undertook in which private investigators used false pretenses, called pretexting, to gain access to the phone records of people being investigated to trace leaks of board deliberations to the media. In their letter, Dingell and Stupak note that Hurd sold $1.37 million in stock options on Aug. 25, the same day Hurd was briefed by attorneys for Wilson Sonsini, one of HP's outside law firms, about the pretexting investigation and possible legal liability for the company over it. The scandal became public Sept. 6 when HP filed a notice with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission acknowledging that director Thomas Perkins resigned over the way the leak investigation was conducted. "The August 25 transaction does not appear to be part of any prescheduled program," the congressmen wrote in their letter to Hurd. "Please explain the reason for this transaction." Questions about the timing of HP executives' stock trades around the same time are also the subject of aÂ shareholder lawsuit against the technology company. The suit, filed Nov. 29 in Santa Clara County Superior Court in California, accuses Hurd and seven other HP executives of selling a total $41.3 million worth of shares between Aug. 21 and Sept. 6 based on insider information that the pretexting scandal was about to become publicly known. HP issued a statement at the time the lawsuit was filed calling it "baseless." As it is, HP's stock price wasn't adversely affected by the scandal as investors regarded it as unrelated to the company's operations. Â
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The Hewlett-Packard surveillance campaign ranged from internal monitoring of e-mail and instant messages to physical surveillance of an HP board member and at least one journalist, according to one of the lawyers at the firm recently retained by the company to investigate its conduct in the matter.
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(InfoWorld) - Ousted Hewlett-Packard Chairman Patricia Dunn, a former company lawyer, and three outside investigators were charged Wednesday in California on felony charges related toÂ the conduct of an investigationÂ to track down news leaks from the HP board that allegedly broke state law. California Attorney General Bill Lockyer's office said charges have also been filed against Kevin Hunsaker, a former senior lawyer at HP; Ronald L. DeLia, a Boston-area private detective; Matthew DePante, manager of Action Research Group, a Melbourne, Florida, information broker; and Bryan Wagner, a Littleton, Colorado, man who is said to have obtained private phone records while working for Action Research. The charges were announced at a press conference held Wednesday at the California Department of Justice. The charges include using false or fraudulent pretenses to obtain confidential information from a public utility, wrongful use of computer data, identity theft, and conspiracy to commit each of those crimes. All of the charges are felonies. "One of our state's most venerable corporate institutions lost its way as its board sought to find out who leaked confidential information to the press," said LockyerÂ in a statement, released Wednesday. "In this misguided effort, people inside and outside of HP violated privacy rights and broke state law." Lockyer's office has been investigating the spying allegations because HP is based in Palo Alto, California. The charges were filed in Santa Clara County Superior Court. The U.S. Attorney's Office in San Francisco and the Federal Bureau of Investigation have been conducting separate investigations of HP. In a statement released after the filing, Dunn's attorney, James Brosnahan, said his client will fight the charges. "These charges are being brought against the wrong person at the wrong time and for the wrong reasons. They are the culmination of a well-financed and highly orchestrated disinformation campaign," Brosnahan said. He did not elaborate on his charge of a disinformation campaign. "As her many supporters fully expect, she will fight these charges with everything she has,â he said. In a statement released Wednesday in advance of the Sacramento press conference, HP said it was continuing to cooperate with state and federal investigators. The private investigators hired by HPÂ allegedly used "pretexting,"Â pretending to be someone they are not, to obtain the telephone records of HP directors, other employees and journalists who cover the company in an attempt to find out who from the board provided information to the reporters. The scandal has attracted the attention of the U.S. Congress.Â On Sept. 28, Dunn toldÂ the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee that she believed employees and lawyers who said that the HP's leak investigation complied with the company's standards of conduct. The subcommittee was holding hearings into the use of pretexting. The committee passed a federal ban on pretexting but the Congress adjourned before the full House or the Senate voted on the legislation. When questioned about the techniques used to track down the leaks arose in the latter part of the investigation, Dunn said, she passed concerns to company Chief Executive Officer Mark Hurd. Before then, the company's lawyers had assured her the techniques were being done "legally and properly," she said. "At no time in the investigation did I authorize its methods," Dunn said. "I asked this to be done in the HP standard way." On his part, Hurd told the subcommittee that he was not aware of the details of the techniques being used. He said he did not read a report from the investigating team that detailed the use of pretexting. Ann Baskins,Â who resignedÂ right before the subcommittee hearing as HP's senior vice president and general counsel, and Hunsaker both asserted their rights not to testify under the Fifth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution during the hearing. Also taking the fifth before the subcommittee were Delia, Wagner, and Action Research owner Joe DePante. Dunn faces these criminal charges at a difficult time in her personal life. Dunn, is scheduled to begin chemotherapy Friday for a recurrence of advanced ovarian cancer, according to a Wednesday report in the San Jose Mercury News. She was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 2004 and had been treated for breast cancer and melanoma dating back to 2001, the paper reported. (Stephen Lawson and Robert McMillan contributed to this story)Â  Â