Update on HP 'pretexting': E-mails scanned; legality questioned
Hewlett-Packard reportedly deployed covert surveillance teams and analyzed thousands of e-mails and phone records during its probe of leaks to the media.
The San Francisco Chronicle reported late Monday that a source close to the scandal said that HP's investigators carefully compared the speaking patterns of board members suspected of talking to the press with the quotations in news articles.
HP's boardroom drama
It's unclear how HP's investigators -- the trail has led back to a Boston-area firm -- obtained "thousands" of e-mail messages, and the Chronicle divulged no details. Breaking into a computer or a Web-based e-mail account would be a violation of state and federal criminal law.
The newspaper's report comes amidst a burgeoning scandal involving Hewlett-Packard's use of pretexting against its own board, a handful of its employees, and journalists, including three reporters from CNET News.com.
In the last few days, news reports have speculated about e-mail that HP's outside investigators allegedly sent to Dawn Kawamoto, a reporter for CNET News.com. While details are still unclear, the ploy could have been done by using a so-called "Web bug" or graphical image that would be loaded from (and tracked by) a remote site, or by sending an infected PDF or Microsoft Word file via e-mail.
In other news:
- California Attorney General Bill Lockyer may decide as early as this week whether to indict anyone in the HP scandal, Bloomberg reported. Charges could include the use of "pretexting," using fraudulent means to obtain someone else's telephone records.
- Fred Adler, an official in HP's global security office in Roseville, Calif., had warned his superiors in e-mail that pretexting could be illegal, the Wall Street Journal reported in Tuesday's editions.
- Boston-area private investigator Ronald R. DeLia is cooperating with prosecutors' investigations, the Boston Globe reported on Monday. DeLia, a former prosecutor, apparently was hired by HP or an HP contractor.
- HP on Monday turned over some documents to a House subcommittee that requested them. Hearings are planned for Sept. 28.
- The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday that HP's investigation continued after a board member was fingered as leaking to the press.
- HP investigators accessed phone records of its then-chief executive, Carly Fiorina, during an earlier 2005 investigation, the San Jose Mercury News reported.
