I took a few days in Vancouver, and while up in Whistler Village I ran into a friend who was a VP at Hewlett Packard until about 6 months ago. He gave me a short, fast but compelling insider's account of the scandal involving HP's Patricia Dunn, Chairman of the board, who engaged in an Illegal Surveillance of other Board of Directors in order to find a "leaker" who was divulging company secrets and strategy to industry journals and magazines, invariably affecting the stock price and causing other forms of Mayhem. My friend also worked closely with Tom Perkins, reknowned Venture Capitalist and HP Board member, known for his all around people skills and respect for individual rights and privacy. What Ms Dunn did in her effort(s) to find the corporate leaker, are actually unbelievably STUPID , even if the information being leaked was heavy duty company secrets.

First, consider this quote from Dunn, cited in numerous articles about the scandal:

Quote:

---

Dunn said, “The recent events that have taken place follow an important investigation that was required after the board sought to resolve the persistent disclosure of confidential information from within its ranks. These leaks had the potential to affect not only the stock price of HP but also that of other publicly traded companies. Unfortunately, the investigation, which was conducted with third parties, included certain inappropriate techniques. These went beyond what we understood them to be, and I apologize that they were employed.

---

The "inappropriate techniques" she is referring to are in fact what Willie D no doubt has heard of, a practice called "pretexting", whereby a individual pretends to actually be another person in order to get information about an account, or phone records, that would otherwise be difficult or impossible to get. Patricia Dunn Ok's having pretexters pretend to be the Board members of Hewlett Packard in order to get their Private phone records to identify CALLS made to the magazine that leaked a story back in September 2005. She was actually able to Identify the GUY who was the leaker, but Good Old almost-a-billionairre Tom Perkins laid into Ms Dunn about the tactics and ethical issues, and thus kicked off a shitstorm that now involves the State Atorney General and Congress, and could land Patty Dunn in Jail when all is said and done.

Now we all know WHY we need to protect our names and identity, because, armed with even a Modicum of personal information, I could in fact, call up a bunch of companies and agencies and, pretending to Be Smelly Monkey, ruin his life for the next 5 years. Of course, in that case, I wouldnt be acting Unethically but rather as the dispenser of Karma, but still, you all get the point.

My friend Quit HP amd now works for Google, FYI. He said the company is reeling from this scandal and NO ONE in the uppermost circles of management trusts anyone anymore.