- http://www.spywareinfo.com/newsletter/arch…6/sep6.php#dunn
"Tom Perkins has resigned from the Hewlett-Packard Board of Directors in disgust, after learning that Chairwoman Patricia Dunn used a "consulting" company to obtain phone records of every other board member illegally… Perkins' attorney is Viet Dinh, the former Justice Department lawyer who wrote the US PATRIOT ACT. When the guy who *wrote* the PATRIOT ACT says you've gone too far by spying on someone, you truly have accomplished something."
- http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14687677/site/newsweek/
- http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060911/ap_on_…rd_directors_25
Sept. 11, 2006
"SAN JOSE, Calif. - A Congressional committee on Monday asked Hewlett-Packard Co. to turn over records related to the company's possibly illegal investigation of media leaks, as the company's board planned to meet again to discuss the fate of embattled Chairwoman Patricia Dunn. The request came as part of the U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee's ongoing investigation into "pretexting" — the practice of impersonating a person in order to access their personal information. HP hired private investigators who used Social Security numbers and other personal information to impersonate HP directors and journalists. The impostors then tricked phone companies into turning over detailed logs of their home and cellular phone calls. Federal prosecutors and the FBI also entered the fray Monday. The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of California issued a statement saying it was "investigating the processes employed in an investigation into possible sources of leaks"…"
- http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060912/ap_on_…rd_directors_39
Sep. 12, 2006
"SAN JOSE, Calif. - Hewlett-Packard Co. said Tuesday that Patricia Dunn will step down as chairwoman of the computer and printer maker in January amid a widening scandal involving a possibly illegal probe into media leaks. She will be succeeded by CEO Mark Hurd…"
- http://www.techweb.com/article/printableAr…_section=700029
September 12, 2006
"George "Jay" Keyworth, a former science advisor to President Ronald Reagan, resigned from Hewlett-Packard's board Tuesday. "It has been one of the greatest honors and pleasures of my life to serve on the board, and I have sought to conduct myself in a way that would make our co-founder and my friend and mentor, David Packard, proud," Keyworth said through a prepared statement. "The invasion of my privacy and that of others was ill-conceived and inconsistent with HP's values"… Board members said in a joint statement that the company had, in fact, asked Keyworth to contact the press but the January contact was not vetted through the appropriate channels. The board also recognized that Keyworth spoke to the reporter in "an attempt to further HP's interests." In the same statement, HP Board Chairperson Patricia Dunn expressed regret for the intrusion into Keyworth's privacy. Keyworth served 21 years…"
- http://www.techweb.com/article/printableAr…_section=700029
September 12, 2006
"California Attorney General Bill Lockyer on Tuesday said his office has gathered enough evidence to issue indictments for crimes committed during Hewlett-Packard Co.'s board's investigation of news leaks. In an interview on "The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer," Lockyer said: "We currently have sufficient evidence to indict people both within Hewlett-Packard as well as outside." "Crimes have been committed. People's identities were taken falsely, and it's a crime. People accessed computer records that have personal information. That's a crime." The quotes were reported by the Wall Street Journal and confirmed by a spokesman for the Attorney General's Office…"
- http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&…rd_directors_49
Sept. 22, 2006
"Hewlett-Packard Co. shoved Chairwoman Patricia Dunn off its board Friday, severing its ties to a leader whose efforts to plug a media leak morphed into a spying scandal that has spawned criminal and congressional investigations. The Palo Alto, Calif.-based company will turn the chairmanship over to its chief executive, Mark Hurd, who was supposed to take over that job in January as part of changes announced two weeks ago… Dunn had previously planned to remain an HP director after relinquishing the chairmanship in January, but now she is leaving the board entirely. "I continue to have the best interests of HP at heart and thus I have accepted the board's request to resign," Dunn said in a Friday statement… Determined to protect confidential board discussions, Dunn hired investigators who impersonated board members, employees and journalists to obtain their phone records. The detectives also surveilled an HP director and concocted an e-mail sting to dupe a reporter for CNet Networks Inc.'s News.com, an online technology site. Hurd on Friday acknowledged authorizing the bogus e-mail, but said he didn't recall approving the use of software to trace the reporter's computer…"
- http://www.infoworld.com/article/06/09/27/HNhprogue_1.html
September 27, 2006
"In an advance copy of his Congressional testimony released by a House Subcommittee on Wednesday, Hewlett-Packard chief executive officer (CEO) Mark Hurd blamed the scandal that has besieged his company on "a rogue investigation" that got out of hand. "How did such an abuse of privacy occur in a company renowned for its privacy? The end came to justify the means," Hurd wrote. "The investigation team became so focused on finding the source of the leaks that they lost sight of the privacy of reporters and others. They lost sight of the values HP has always represented"…"
HP resignations continue as probe launches
- http://www.securityfocus.com/brief/316
Published: 2006-09-28
"Hewlett-Packard announced on Thursday that the company's top lawyer had tendered her resignation, effective immediately. The news that Ann Baskins, the general counsel for the technology giant, will step down comes as the Hewlett-Packard's CEO and former chairwoman prepare to testify to a Congressional subcommittee on their role in the investigation that led to the hacking of AT&T computers…"
- http://www.techweb.com/article/printableAr…_section=700029
October 03, 2006
"At least three Hewlett Packard employees repeatedly expressed concerns about the legality of methods used to obtain people's private phone records during a probe into media leaks from the company's board. "I am VERY concerned about the legality of this information," HP investigator Fred Adler wrote in an e-mail during the probe. Documents released after a congressional hearing last week show that HP employees were aware and concerned that investigators working on behalf of the company could have been using illegal means to obtain personal call information… Correspondence between Adler, Tim O'Neill, Vincent Nye, former ethics chief and lawyer Kevin Hunsaker and former security chief Anthony Gentilucci shows that Adler, O'Neill and Nye repeatedly cautioned higher-ups about the practices used by outside investigator Ron DeLia or his subcontractors… As the scandal went public, board members stated they had been assured pretexting was legal and the company stated that outside investigators were involved in the practice. At that time, e-mails to and from Gentilucci, HP's former security chief, show that he felt he and others were being "hung out to dry." "I have lost a lot of respect for a lot of people," he wrote. Gentilucci is among several people who have resigned over the scandal."
- http://tinyurl.com/rpmba
October 4, 2006
"State prosecutors brought felony charges today against Patricia C. Dunn, the former chairwoman of Hewlett-Packard, and four other people in the spying case that has rocked the company. In addition to Ms. Dunn, the felony complaint names Kevin T. Hunsaker, a former senior lawyer at H.P.; Ronald L. DeLia, a Boston-area private detective; Joseph DePante, owner of Action Research Group, a Melbourne, Fla., information broker; and Bryan Wagner, a Littleton, Colo., man who is said to have obtained private phone records while working for Mr. DePante. All of those named face four charges: using of false or fraudulent pretenses to obtain confidential information from a public utility, unauthorized access to computer data, identity theft, and conspiracy to commit each of those crimes. All of the charges are felonies.
The maximum penalty for the identity theft charge is a $1,000 fine and a year in jail. Fraudulent access to information from a public utility carries a possible one-year prison or jail term. Illegal access to computer data carries a maximum punishment of $10,000 and a three-year prison term…"
- http://www.infoworld.com/archives/emailPri…psettles_1.html
December 07, 2006
"Hewlett-Packard Co. (HP) has agreed to a $14.5 million settlement in the California civil lawsuit related to the company's spying scandal. Under terms of the settlement with the California attorney general, HP will pay $13.5 million to create a "Privacy and Piracy Fund" for law enforcement activities related to privacy and intellectual property rights operated in the state Attorney General's Office. The company will also pay $650,000 in civil penalties and $350,000 to cover expenses of the investigation, California Attorney General Bill Lockyer announced Thursday afternoon. HP executives and private investigators retained by the company still face criminal charges in the scandal, which involves the alleged use of "pretexting," or pretending to be someone to obtain their personal phone records…"
- http://www.baselinemag.com/article2/0,1540,2060332,00.asp
"…At HP, you have some people who [were] basically very ego-driven. And they were doing things that other people saw, but chose to ignore in one way or another. The lesson to be learned, from a security perspective, is when you allow your users to be ego-driven, you're going to have security problems. While it might seem like ethics, the ethics in this case are creating more damage than a major computer breach ever could… I think what people are not really looking at is the proliferation of spyware and how that could affect people a lot more than it is right now. What we're seeing is thousands, if not millions, of computers compromised over the years…"
Pretexting banned in the US
- http://www.out-law.com/page-7655
15/01/2007 ~ "The kind of surveillance activities carried out on behalf of computing giant Hewlett-Packard which caused controversy last year have been made illegal in the US thanks to a new law. President George W Bush has signed an Act which outlaws pretexting, the practice of gaining information about a third party's phone use without their permission. The federal legislation signed by Bush was the Federal Telephone Records and Privacy Protection Act. It creates criminal penalties for "the fraudulent or unauthorised acquisition or disclosure of confidential phone records information," according to a statement from the White House. The Act was approved by the Senate in December of last year and was signed by Bush on Friday. It creates penalties of up to 10 years in prison for anyone found to have broken the law. The punishment can be doubled if the activity is found to be on a large scale, which the Act defines as involving more than $100,000 or more than 50 victims…"
HP Corporate Spying Case Mushrooms
- http://www.informationweek.com/shared/prin…cleID=197000668
Jan. 25, 2007 ~ "What started out with Hewlett-Packard's board trying to keep a lid on its trade secrets has escalated into charges of corporate spying against its employees and espionage against rival Dell. Karl Kamb Jr., who served as vice president of business development at HP, filed a claim late last week that the company's illicit tactic of pretexting and spying wasn't limited to its boardroom leak investigation. Kamb claimed in his suit that HP snooped into his personal telephone records during an investigation the company was waging against Kamb himself. In a surprise move, U.S. District Judge Michael Schneider ordered Kamb to withdraw his counterclaim. He also ordered that, if Kamb wishes to refile, he do so under seal. Finally, he ordered Kamb and anyone else involved with the case not to talk to the press about the allegations in his counterclaim. Kamb, who also claims HP instructed him to spy on rival Dell, was ousted from the PC maker in 2005 after being accused of stealing trade secrets. He was named as the defendant in a federal lawsuit filed in 2005. He denied the allegation and filed a counterclaim against HP in U.S. District Court in the Eastern District of Texas last week. In a prepared statement HP said Kamb's counterclaim was "without merit"…"
:wtf:
