1. Here is the infamous CNET article published on 23rd January 2006 which was leaked by a board director at Hewlett-Packard.
CNET News.com January 23, 2006, 4:00 AM PST
HP outlines long-term strategy: plans for next 18 months include improved direct sales technology, acquisitions and, yes, more printers.
By Dawn Kawamoto and Tom Krazit Staff Writer
Hewlett-Packard executives are mulling plans to improve over the next 18 months the technology the company uses to manage its direct sales, while it continues with commercial printing efforts and acquisitions of software companies.
Two weeks ago, HP CEO Mark Hurd, the company's board of directors and senior executives gathered at the computer giant's annual management retreat to discuss long-term strategies.
http://news.com.com/HP+outlines+long-term+strategy/2100-1014_3-6029519.html?tag=nl
2. CNET is on top of an apparent discrepancy regarding when the investigation was started which was supposed to have been triggered by the above article January last. CNET reports that the investigation began before the publication of the above article while Tom Perkins says that Pattie Dunn told him the "stepped up" investigation did not started until after 23rd January 2006 publication date. Was there an investigation underway which was increased after the article based on leaks came out? That's what the language says so far as noted here. Was the investigation continuing from the time this phase of it was started a year earlier? If so, there is no discrepancy. Time will tell.
CNET News.com September 20, 2006, 1:08 PM PDT
Perkins: Pretexting dates don't match
When did the company begin targeting reporters' records? Some accounts of the start date don't match up.
By Ina Fried Staff Writer
update A government investigator says that Hewlett-Packard began accessing CNET News.com reporters' phone calls in mid-January. But that time line differs from the account that former director Tom Perkins says was given to him by HP Chairman Patricia Dunn.
Two CNET News.com reporters were told Tuesday that their phone records were accessed the week of Jan. 17, the week before CNET News.com published a key story on a management and board retreat held earlier that month. A representative for Perkins said on Wednesday that Dunn told him that the stepped-up leak investigation did not start until after the Jan. 23 article was published.
"It was Tom Perkins's understanding that the CNET article triggered the investigation," Perkins spokesman Mark Corallo told CNET News.com on Wednesday. "That clearly was his understanding."
3. Looks like a determined rogue out at the periphery was dreaming up schemes to earn money by planting people at news organisations as employees to find the sources of leaks. Some might call that enterprising. Although expensive, I don't see that this is a problem. It's simple spycraft. The BBC has enrolled one of its reporters in the police training programme. He found bigotry. The BBC programme Whistleblower regularly plants one of its reporters in organisations to gather information: 1) the parking attendant in the Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea; and 2) the estate agent employed at a Notting Hill office and other offices. Both of these were certainly considered legitimate. What would be wrong in this case to plant such an agent in media offices to uncover the source of a leak? Sounds like a little of its own medicine applied to the media. However, the Queen did not like having a reporter employed at Buckingham Palace, but that involved security and privacy of the Monarch. Yet, that information was published. A new element it might be, but it's not the same as "Pretexting" is it?
The International Herald Tribune Wednesday, 20th September 2006
HP is said to have studied planting spies in 2 newsrooms
By Damon Darlin and Kurt Eichenwald The New York Times
Hewlett-Packard conducted feasibility studies on planting spies in news bureaus for two major publications as part of an investigation of news leaks from the company's board, according to an individual briefed on the company's review of the operation.
The studies, referred to in a Feb. 2 draft report for a briefing of senior management, included the possibility of placing investigators acting as clerical employees or cleaning crews in the San Francisco offices of CNET and The Wall Street Journal. It is not clear whether the plan was acted upon.
The report was sent Feb. 1 by Anthony Gentilucci, Hewlett-Packard's Boston- based manager of global investigations, to four others, including Kevin Hunsaker, a senior counsel in Hewlett-Packard's legal department and the company's chief ethics officer.
. . .
The consideration of undercover agents inside news organisations adds a new element to what is known of the Hewlett-Packard investigation, which prominently included the use of subterfuge to gain the phone records of company directors, employees, journalists and others.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/09/20/business/hp.php
4. Patricia Dunn is to be inducted into the San Francisco's Bay Area Council's Hall of Fame. She is Vice Chair of the Larkin Street Youth Project whose Chair is one David B Zenoff (see below). David Zenoff taught an International Business course I took c 1972 at Columbia Business School. He was one of the finest scholars and teachers I have had in my educational experience. During the last class, he gave a speech which resulted in an ovation at the end. That was only one of two times such an ovation was given to a teacher in any course that I've taken. It's easy to see that that kind of distinctive and outstanding company she keeps and positions she occupies belies the kinds of implications and innuendos which have been circulating regarding the Hewlett-Packard matter. As I indicated at the beginning of last week, I remain a strong supporter since I know her character from a prior professional relationship I had with Wells Fargo Investment Advisors. Now, the association with David Zenoff and the Larkin Street Youth Project cements that assessment further.
Mercury News Wednesday, 20th September 2006
Honors for Dunn: 'She is a fighter'
By Michelle Quinn and Therese Poletti
After enduring weeks of notoriety for initiating a corporate investigation that triggered a congressional inquiry and criminal investigations, Hewlett-Packard's chairwoman, Patricia Dunn, steps into the spotlight tonight for another reason.
She'll receive the honor of being inducted into the Bay Area Council's hall of fame.
. . .
But the hall-of-fame honor is one she shares with local luminaries such as the deceased founders of HP, Bill Hewlett and David Packard, Gordon Moore of Intel and filmmaker George Lucas
. . .
Friends and former colleagues say Dunn has been greatly misunderstood as the HP investigation has surfaced. To them, she is a hardworking business star, the rare woman in the male-dominated world of corporate finance.
That Dunn still plans to attend the event -- and speak publicly to a crowd of business elite -- is testament to her fighting spirit, say friends and colleagues. She has survived three kinds of cancer -- breast, melanoma and more recently ovarian -- in the past few years.
. . .
Dunn sits on the board of Larkin Street Youth Project, a San Francisco non-profit that serves troubled youth. Last year, she and her husband gave $1 million.
Last Monday, hours after HP announced that Dunn would step down in January as HP's chair, she attended meetings on Larkin Street board business.
``No one expected her,'' said David Zenoff, who chairs the Larkin Street board. ``I imagine she was there because it's a way to give her heart and head no matter what's going on in the corporate world.''
http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/business/15562258.htm