Update me on this whole HP spying thing

[Penguin]

What is this all about? I've heard about it and I know no details.


It's just easier to ask the SO experts than go digging around on the net.

[TheLurker]

Well, basically either Snape was spying on Dumbledore for Voldemort the whole time. Or, he was spying on Voldemort for Dumbledore the whole time.

YWIA

[Vaevictis]

There were leaks on the HP board. So a board member took it upon herself to find the leaker. She outsourced the investigation, and some of the people who looked into it "pretexted" to get information -- ie, they essentially claimed to be the people they were digging information on.

Basically, this is illegal and opens HP to litigation from the parties who were investigated.

Further, one of the board members resigned -- in protest -- over it, and the SEC usually requires the company to disclose that the resignation was in protest/in disagreement over certain actions, and what that reason was. HP never did. This, in turn, potentially opens HP to litigation from the SEC, various state attorneys general, and shareholders to name a few.

Bad stuff all around.

[Widescreen]

HP's general counsel resigned yesterday too. This is going to get ugly.

[sanantoniosooner]

I wasn't impressed with HuskerPedia anyway.

[colleyvillesooner]

There were leaks on the HP board. So a board member took it upon herself to find the leaker. She outsourced the investigation, and some of the people who looked into it "pretexted" to get information -- ie, they essentially claimed to be the people they were digging information on.

Basically, this is illegal and opens HP to litigation from the parties who were investigated.

Further, one of the board members resigned -- in protest -- over it, and the SEC usually requires the company to disclose that the resignation was in protest/in disagreement over certain actions, and what that reason was. HP never did. This, in turn, potentially opens HP to litigation from the SEC, various state attorneys general, and shareholders to name a few.

Bad stuff all around.

Man, the Southeastern Conference is one bad mother.

[Gandalf_The_Grey]

Hewlett Packard?

[royalfan5]

Pretty much HP was pretending they were the Federal Gov't and the Chairman was in Washington today trying to explain that she just thought you could legally get anybodies phone records you wanted. There was also a lot of 5th Amendment using on the hill today. HP is going to be in trouble if this sucks the CEO down because they needed a strong operational exec like him after the Fiorina mess.

[OCUDad]

Vae has it pretty much right. The investigation started back when Carly Fiorina was CEO. She and the Chairwoman of the Board, Patricia Dunn, engaged outside investigators to discover the source of leaks on HP's board. The investigators used some pretty questionable techniques, including pretexting, which is a Federal crime. The investigations continued after Fiorina was ousted and replaced with Mark Hurd. Hurd is even more aggressive about preventing leaks that Fiorina was. On his watch, investigators sent a traceable e-mail to a journalist who had published some of the leaked information in hopes they could find out her sources if and when she forwarded the e-mail. (Nobody's figured out yet whether that was technically illegal, by the way.)

The leaks were eventually traced to Jay Keyworth, a Board member who was asked to resign and refused. When his friend and fellow board member Tom Perkins found out how the investigation had identified Keyworth as the source of the leak, Perkins resigned on the spot, storming out of the board meeting where the investigation was revealed. At the time, HP reported he had resigned due to "differences with Patricia Dunn," which turns out to be accurate but not wholly truthful.

Anyway, it's now a mess. Dunn was forced to resign from the Board, Hurd replaced her as Chairman, Keyworth has now resigned, HP's chief counsel has resigned, and their head of Security was dismissed. The California Attorney General, a noted publicity hound, is after HP and so is Congress. This may get worse before it gets better. And it will be interesting to see if Hurd can come out of it with clean skirts. The market is in love with him because he returned HP to profitability. They'll probably punish the stock if he winds up having to leave, too.

[SicEmBaylor]

The HP CEO is a Baylor grad.

[RacerX]

Here's some articles (http://www.eweek.com/search_results/0%2C1208%2C%2C00.asp?qry=board+leak+hp&section=&site=7).

[SoonerJack]

Remember when Carly Fiorina was supposed to be the savior of HP? Guess that didn't quite work out.

By the way, outstanding summaries, Vaevictus and OCUDad.

[Flagstaffsooner]

The HP CEO is a Baylor grad.Most crooks are.;)

You people can have your own prison team.

[NormanPride]

So Dumbledore conspired with Harry to hire Snape to spy on Voldemort, but Snape used some of the forbidden curses (i.e. Imperius) to get his information and now Voldemort is ****ed? Add that to the fact that now Dumbledore is gone and McGonagall is in charge, she's even more strict, but she didn't start the investigation. What does this mean for her? I like her, she's done a lot for the school, but the Ministry might have to kick her out anyway just to save face.

[SicEmBaylor]

Most crooks are.;)

You people can have your own prison team.

Yeah but it's all white collar crime for us, so country club prison. It's not like UT grads knocking off a guy on the street corner for some smack.