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| And Worse and Worse-- Carly was snooped on in 2005 - Updated |
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Tuesday, September 19 2006 @ 02:08 AM EDT
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Now we learn HP got Carly Fiorina's phone records too, back in 2005, while she was still the CEO, according to Mercury News, which tells us that HP met the Monday deadline to turn over documents to the House Energy and Commerce Committee. They might have a few leakers there too, methinks. Here's a Law.com article explaining some of the issues regarding the hearings scheduled for the 28th. And there's more, much more. HP since 2002, as portrayed in this article, sounds a little like East Germany under Communist rule, where almost everyone was snooping on somebody and secretly was a STASI informant: The Stasi is what East Germany’s secret police were called. Essentially their job was to root out political enemies. In the extreme paranoia of the former communist government, that meant enemies around every corner, in every home. In fact, we met a former inmate today who learned only a few years ago when she was able to review her Stasi file that her own husband was a Stasi informant. He (still very much alive) hadn’t told her.
Of course the analogy is to the atmosphere. There were and are no HP prisons, I'm happy to report. And no one makes you dip your hand in boiling oil to determine your guilt or innocence when they can't figure out who the culprit is. You just lose your privacy and then your job. Maybe your good name in an 8K filing with the SEC. Meanwhile, everyone says good morning to every one else every day and then gets to work snooping. Or outsourcing it.
According to the article, pretexting only happened in the 2006 investigation, but then how did they get Carly's phone records? 'Tis a mystery: The 2005 investigation included obtaining phone records from phone companies, rather than merely HP's internal phone system, but the company says only the 2006 investigation involved pretexting. It wasn't clear whether Fiorina or most others' cell, home or office phone records were obtained. Let me guess. Back then it was easier and they just bought them for $78 on the internet? Or maybe their PI had connections? I wonder if she'll sue.
The following board members and other victims were snooped on back then too: George Keyworth, former board member Robert Knowling, current board member and former board chairman Richard Hackborn, Brigida Bergkamp, an HP corporate spokeswoman, and Lucie Salhany, a board member. I wonder how it feels to find out about that now? And we know now the name of the second HP employee whose privacy was invaded in the 2006 investigation: Donovan, the HP spokesman, said Monday that Bergkamp is "the second of two employees targeted in the investigation, and the investigation concluded that any suspicion of Brigida was baseless. She plans to remain with HP." Well, Brigida is a PR person. She'd tell HP and us that, while she quietly sends out her resume, via anonymous remailers, from a cybercafe. Joke. Joke.
The company also took videos of some targets to see if they were meeting with reporters. In short, HP has to plead temporary insanity, because it lost its cotton pickin' corporate mind.
Here's HP's statement: HP spokesman Ryan Donovan said Monday, "The only thing I would say about the current investigation is the intent was the right intent. Information was leaked from the company that was potentially damaging and had ability to move stocks, which is not a good thing."
Donovan said that the first investigation started and ended in early 2005, before Fiorina was ousted in February. Um. Like what? Let's get specific. Exactly what was leaked that could have moved stocks? And is there any evidence that it ever did? I'm sure they'd be telling us if there was any such evidence. They went bonkers over what could happen or might happen but apparently never actually did happen? So, not to be a cynic, but was that really the motivation for this pervasive and persistent snoopery? The article makes it sound a bit more like political infighting. One person was fired for talking to a reporter. Put that crime on your resume. Here's a little factoid to make a note of if you care about your privacy at all: HP often issued its own cell phones to employees and so it was able to legally check phone calls for any contacts with reporters. Modern Times. Just staple an RFID chip in their foreheads, why don't you, so you can legally track everywhere they go and everything they do. After all, you're the employer, and who are they to have privacy rights? You pay them, don't you? Oh, wait. Cell phones do track where you go, huh? How handy. Just a word to the wise: Beware of bosses bearing gifts. If your boss offers you a cell phone, think it over very, very carefully. Say thanks, and then toss it in the nearest lake. I guess that won't help, will it? I hear anyone can buy anyone's cell phone records. How did we get here, folks? What happened?
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| Authored by: qu1j0t3 on Tuesday, September 19 2006 @ 02:25 AM EDT |
If any.
---
I have a semicolon and I'm not afraid to use it.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Briareus on Tuesday, September 19 2006 @ 02:52 AM EDT |
So PJ can find them...
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scary times are never dull[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, September 19 2006 @ 03:05 AM EDT |
I wonder why they are so paranoid. Do they have some really dark secret to hide
- maybe some illegal anti-trust activity like why they go out of their way not
to advertise Linux compatibility, or is it simply a case of corporate politics.
I find it difficult to believe the latter is the case, since that usually is
confined to the upper echelons of management, and does not spill over into
spying on journalists.
[ Reply to This | # ]
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- Yeah, they do - Authored by: Groo on Tuesday, September 19 2006 @ 05:43 AM EDT
- Yeah, they do - Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, September 19 2006 @ 06:56 AM EDT
- I found myself discussing this with my parents - Authored by: jplatt39 on Tuesday, September 19 2006 @ 06:49 AM EDT
- And Worse and Worse-- Carly was snooped on in 2005 - Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, September 19 2006 @ 07:02 AM EDT
- And Worse and Worse-- Carly was snooped on in 2005 - Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, September 19 2006 @ 08:31 AM EDT
- And Worse and Worse-- Carly was snooped on in 2005 - Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, September 19 2006 @ 11:20 AM EDT
- And Worse and Worse-- Carly was snooped on in 2005 - Authored by: grundy on Tuesday, September 19 2006 @ 12:06 PM EDT
- And Worse and Worse-- Carly was snooped on in 2005 - Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, September 19 2006 @ 05:20 PM EDT
- Details: "Material sought by House panel in investigation of HP affair" - Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, September 19 2006 @ 09:25 PM EDT
- And Worse and Worse-- Carly was snooped on in 2005 - Authored by: hamstring on Wednesday, September 20 2006 @ 09:29 AM EDT
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| Authored by: Briareus on Tuesday, September 19 2006 @ 03:16 AM EDT |
If, as stated in the previous article, it is a fact that
Even
material, non public investment information (inside information) is not per se
confidential. The law prohibits trading on such information or tipping others to
do so. Communication of such information to persons who will neither trade nor
tip is perfectly permissible....
...Then I cannot see what HP's
Ministry of Intelligence Gathering was hoping to cure. Are they just
taken in by the ethos of intelligence gathering by any means and creating their
own little 'Total State' there in the HP HQ?
I mean what can their
operations be in aid of, if the leak was neither illegal nor subjecting the
company to a quantifiable loss? A previous poster remarked that a leak in a
boardroom acts like a cancer and affects all other interactions, and surely this
can drive people in high-pressure positions to take actions, sut surely this
reaction is akin to poisoning a well to keep people from drinking from it. The
negative press they are receiving, not to mention never getting another single
penny from me and people like me, is going to cost them far more than the leak.
Someone in that boardroom HAD to think of this. The fact that the holder of
their Ethical compass was knee deep in the operation is laughable in the
extreme, but it speaks volumes of the kind and caliber of people at the top of
HP.
If it is as reported that the intel op was ongoing before Carleton
even left, it looks more like a boardroom power play, with the threat of a leak
as the pretext, pun intended.
I have a feeling we have much more
yet to see.
As for me, I am going to vote with my feet, and stroll on
over to anyone other than HP in the future.
---
scary times are
never dull [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: tknarr on Tuesday, September 19 2006 @ 03:35 AM EDT |
What happened? Business schools happened. And they happened because of a more
fundamental problem: somewhere in the last few decades we stopped teaching that
rights have limits, and that those limits are symmetric. We've got a generation
of managers and executives who believe, for example, that while an employee's
right to privacy ends when they enter the workplace, the company's right to
monitor that employee doesn't end when the employee leaves the workplace.
That they've got every right to demand all the time they want from employees and
the employees have no right to object short of quitting, or to demand the same
accomodation to their needs from the company that the company demands of them to
it's needs.
I think it started back in high school, when kids started to
realize that if you were valuable enough to, say, the football team that the
coach'd "fix" any problems you happened to cause so the team wouldn't have to do
without you. The kids decided that those must be the rules, since that's the way
the adults ran things. And now those kids have grown up and are running
companies, and they still believe those are the rules. [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, September 19 2006 @ 03:42 AM EDT |
I am getting sick and tired of your anti-German tirades. This is not the first
time that you have equated Germans with evil. Why don't you go pick on some
Arabs for a change?[ Reply to This | # ]
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- Unfortunately her comments about the Stasi are true - Authored by: BobDowling on Tuesday, September 19 2006 @ 03:54 AM EDT
- Don't Feed This Troll - Authored by: Briareus on Tuesday, September 19 2006 @ 04:21 AM EDT
- To PJ - Authored by: analyzer on Tuesday, September 19 2006 @ 04:24 AM EDT
- fantastic history? - Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, September 19 2006 @ 04:42 AM EDT
- To PJ - Authored by: Wol on Tuesday, September 19 2006 @ 07:35 AM EDT
- To PJ - Authored by: TerryL on Tuesday, September 19 2006 @ 08:06 AM EDT
- To PJ - Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, September 20 2006 @ 07:07 AM EDT
- To PJ - Authored by: fxbushman on Tuesday, September 19 2006 @ 09:31 PM EDT
- To PJ - Authored by: billposer on Tuesday, September 19 2006 @ 04:25 AM EDT
- To PJ - Authored by: PJ on Tuesday, September 19 2006 @ 05:57 AM EDT
- To PJ - Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, September 19 2006 @ 06:44 AM EDT
- Knee jerk - Authored by: MeinZy on Tuesday, September 19 2006 @ 09:36 AM EDT
- Hear hear - Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, September 19 2006 @ 09:58 AM EDT
- Knee jerk - Authored by: Tyro on Tuesday, September 19 2006 @ 06:19 PM EDT
- Ethnic Thread - Authored by: Carlo Graziani on Tuesday, September 19 2006 @ 10:50 AM EDT
- Ethnic Thread - Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, September 19 2006 @ 11:11 AM EDT
- Dear PJ, - Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, September 19 2006 @ 11:53 AM EDT
- Dear PJ, - Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, September 19 2006 @ 02:32 PM EDT
- Dear PJ, - Authored by: PJ on Thursday, September 21 2006 @ 12:38 AM EDT
- To PJ - Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, September 19 2006 @ 12:19 PM EDT
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, September 19 2006 @ 03:47 AM EDT |
PJ Wrote : Oh, wait. Cell phones do track where you go, huh?
Er, I believe they can. Due to the nature of making a connection to different
mobile network antennas, it is possible to triangulate the cell phone's position
to within some few meters.
There have been cases in europe where evidence from the police was used to show
that a given person was within a few meters of a crime being comitted, which
eventually lead to prosecution. At least, that's what my memory tells me.
But as to telling the position, AFAIK that IS possible, but the accuracy is less
than a GPS system.
Shane.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, September 19 2006 @ 04:43 AM EDT |
"How did we get here, folks? What happened?"
I am afraid any discussion on this would soon get political.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, September 19 2006 @ 05:56 AM EDT |
An eerie feeling creeps up reading this. Just like when I watched "The
Skulls" where everybody was spying on everybody, pretending to be
"friends for life".[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: LegalIdiot on Tuesday, September 19 2006 @ 06:28 AM EDT |
| Or anyone else with this kind of phone. They
jusy dial your number from their preconfigured phone number and can listen to
everything around you, or your phone conversations. It never rings when called
from the special number, and nobody near you is safe from their snooping. Great
for you average HP board room member! [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, September 19 2006 @ 07:41 AM EDT |
HP spokesman Ryan Donovan said Monday, "The only thing I would say about the
current investigation is the intent was the right intent. Information was leaked
from the company that was potentially damaging and had ability to move stocks,
which is not a good thing."
In other words, the end justifies the
means? Isn't that the same argument used by the current US Administration in
the "war" against terror, not to mention some famous, or infamous, people of the
past? (for those less informed, this is a rhetorical question)
When push
comes to shove, it sure seems like high moral standards become the first
casualty...[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, September 19 2006 @ 07:56 AM EDT |
How did we get here, folks? What happened?
MY GOD!!
It's almost as if we all lived in one small town. We've (people) been here
before. The world got bigger for a few years and people felt annonymous to do
all sorts of things (legal and legitimate or not) while staying "safe" in a
crowd. In the old days if you didn't like snooping you moved to a small cabin
far in the woods and stopped dealing with people. That still works, just ask
Ted K. or Eric R. the Feds searched for both for years before they found
either.
Once we acknowledge that snooping is an intractable part of
human nature then we can start working on reasonable lengths to control
it. If the comments stay in context, we have a better chance of getting
legitimate protections for our privacy.
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Carlo Graziani on Tuesday, September 19 2006 @ 10:11 AM EDT |
| Here's a depressing thought:
There apparently exists a segment of the
corporate consulting industry that provides these kinds of investigative
services to corporations. HP was able to let their fingers do the walking, pick
up a phone, and hire these people.
Such industries do not grow up by
themselves -- their appearance is a symptom of demand.
This means that there
must be many, many other corporations that are in the market for these
services. By implication, many corporations are encroaching on the privacy of
their corporate officers, their employees, their contractors, and third parties.
It can't be just HP.
HP was just the first one to get caught at it, thanks
to Mr. Perkins' determination to set the record straight with the SEC. But it
is easy to forecast that in retrospect, we will find that our burgeoning
surveillance society has a vibrant corporate counterpart to the already
well-known government outrages.
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| Authored by: Brian S. on Tuesday, September 19 2006 @ 11:41 AM EDT |
....according to people familiar with the situation....Fred Adler, an
official in H-P's global security office in Roseville, Calif., wrote that
acquiring people's phone records through false pretenses could be against the
law...Mr. Adler's unit is headed by Jim Fairbaugh, H-P's head of global
security...
A person familiar with the matter said Mr. Sonsini, of law firm
Wilson, Sonsini, Goodrich & Rosati, also was pretexted in the board-leak
probe. Mr. Adler referred questions to H-P's spokesman, Robert Sherbin, who
declined to comment. Mr. Fairbaugh didn't return phone calls seeking comment. An
assistant for Mr. Sonsini said he wasn't reachable for comment......
Moneyweb
Brian S.
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| Authored by: nuthead on Tuesday, September 19 2006 @ 11:49 AM EDT |
There were and are no HP prisons, I'm happy to report.
Are you
sure? Remember HP is SCO's "strategic partner"; maybe HP's version of the gulag
is having to liason with SCO. Do something bad and get stuck having to interact
with "McBride and the Ride". Oh, and run the risk of getting subpoenaed by IBM,
Red Hat, Novell, etc. An actual prison might be preferrable.
;)[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: CustomDesigned on Tuesday, September 19 2006 @ 04:23 PM EDT |
| How to dip your hand in boiling
lead. The principle sounds like it would work for hot oil as well (could
experiment with hot dogs). If forced into such a situation, I would give it a
try. But would I get labelled a wizard if it worked? [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: tanstaafl on Tuesday, September 19 2006 @ 08:49 PM EDT |
... to conduct their job. I used to be in Engineering, but now do technical
support (not my first choice), and carrying a Company-issued cellphone and being
on-call for a week every month or two is part of the job. Since it's their
phone, I consider every conversation I have using it as being open to anybody in
the Company. It's not the most pleasant of situations, but most of the
conversations I conduct using it are based on Company business, so it's almost
like talking with co-workers and customers in the hallway; I _expect_ those
conversations to be semi-public.
In a similar way, I expect emails (and even this web posting, done on a
Company-owned laptop tied to the internet via a Company-funded connection) to be
be logged and examined, if only by a script. If the Company and its
representatives allow me the latitude to make an occasional personal phone call,
web posting, or email, then I'm willing to treat all such postings as
Company-public. It's only when I'm using _my_ software (or software licensed to
me personally) on _my_ equipment that I will not tolerate interference or
eavesdropping - but that's a different circumstance altogether.
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, September 21 2006 @ 08:40 AM EDT |
HP often issued its own cell phones.
I'm afraid I can't fault them on this, for the following reasons:
1. A company cell phone has the same business use a company desk phone
has.
2. A company cell phone should be reserved for business use.
3. The company has the right, and the responsibility to make sure that
business equipment is not being used in a manner that is detrimental to the
company. For example, don't go ringing up big bills calling sex lines that
would be charged to the company. That is stealing plain and simple.
Regarding tracking, gets a little trickier. For one thing, I don't believe that
cell phone companies are in the habit of handing out the location of he cell
phones when calls are received as a standard practice. ie, you can get the
phone numbers you called and when from the cell phone company, but not
from where the call was made.
To test this out, call your cell phone company and ask.
Given the above, do not use the company cell phone when calling the
reporter, use your own.
We'll leave out for now any bugging that may be taking place at your place of
work. There was an article about video hams I read recently. Some places
have security cameras linked to the internet that anyone on the internet can
view, that shows people at their jobs.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, September 21 2006 @ 09:21 AM EDT |
PJ,
Can you put Sept 28th on the HP time line. That's when the congressional
hearings will take place, and all should be exposed. Is there anyone in
Washington D.C. that can cover this for Groklaw?[ Reply to This | # ]
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