Que s'est-il passé chez HP pour faire naître une telle polémique ?
Les dirigeants de HP ont lancé une enquête pour faire la lumière sur des fuites venant du conseil d'administration. Certaines des méthodes employées dans cette enquête posent des questions éthiques, sinon légales.
Qui en est à l'origine des fuites?
George Keyworth, l'un des plus anciens membres du conseil d'administration, a reconnu, en mai, avoir livré des informations à plusieurs publications spécialisées dans l'IT. Il a présenté sa démission le 21 septembre, un jour après celle de Patricia Dunn, présentée comme l'instigatrice des opérations d'espionnage.
Sur quoi portaient ces fuites ?
Sur échanges tenus lors des réunion du conseil d'administration. La plus notable est celle concernant le départ de Carleton Friorina, la précédente directrice générale. L'information avait été révélée par la presse avant que HP ne l'annonce officiellement.
Es-ce que HP a violé la loi ?
De nombreux enquêteurs et avocats arrivent à cette conclusion. Mais, en nous basant sur les éléments dont nous disposons, il est possible que le groupe ne se soit pas mis hors la loi. Les sociétés mandatées par HP pour mener les investigations - des agences de détectives privées - pourraient, en revanche, avoir employé des méthodes contrevenant aux dispositions légales.
Quelles sont ces méthodes illégales ?
Les "sous-traitants" de HP se sont procuré des enregistrements téléphoniques en se faisant passer, au téléphone, pour les personnes espionnées. Plusieurs membres de la Chambre des représentants ont récemment indiqué que cette méthode, le "pretexting", est illégale. Les agences de détectives ont également tenté d'utiliser un logiciel espion, expédié par email à des journalistes.
Est-ce que le service juridique de HP était au courant ?
Oui. Des rapports ont établi que Kevin Hunsaker, conseil du groupe, planifiait une "offensive" dirigée contre au moins un journaliste et qu'il en aurait exposé les détails à Patricia Dunn dans une présentation PowerPoint.
Ce journaliste a donc décelé la vile manoeuvre et l'a révélée ?
Pas exactement. C'est la SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission) qui a mis le doigt sur ce fait dans un document où HP reconnaît avoir fait appel à des enquêteurs pour remonter aux sources des fuites.
Quand s'est déroulée l'enquête diligentée par HP ?
Elle a débuté en mars 2005 - sous le règne de la précédente DG, Carly Fiorina - et a cessé en mai 2006. Selon un membre du conseil d'administration, les pratiques basées sur le pretexting (usurper l'identité de quelqu'un d'autre) auraient commencé dès janvier 2006.
Des têtes sont-elles tombées depuis que l'affaire est devenue publique ?
Oui, plusieurs pontes ont quitté leurs fonctions. C'est le cas de Georges Keyworth, le membre du conseil d'administration accusé d'être l'auteur des fuites. Tom Perkins, un autre administrateur, a démissionné après avoir appris les méthodes d'investigation mises en oeuvre. Il a réclamé la tête de la présidente du conseil, Patricia Dunn et a dû être satisfait de la voir, à son tour, démissionner. Autre départ d'envergure : celui de la directrice juridique, Ann Beskins.
Quelles actions sont entreprises pour éclairer l'ensemble des événements ?
Au niveau fédéral, Mark Hurd et d'autres dirigeants, ainsi que les représentants de plusieurs agences de détectives, sont appelés à être auditionnés par une sous-commission de la Chambre des représentants. L'Etat de Californie a également ouvert une procédure mais celle-ci reste, pour le moment, au stade de la recherche de preuves. Enfin, la SEC, le gendarme de la bourse américain, s'intéresse de près à l'affaire.
When John Glaser, CIO at Partners HealthCare System Inc., had a routine business meeting with some Hewlett-Packard Co. employees recently, HP's boardroom scandal came up. The HP workers "were kind of embarrassed by it," he said, but "it's almost like it's happening on Mars - their day jobs are not affected."
Glaser said the same is true for his relationship with HP: It's unchanged. He described the media leak probe scandal as a relatively minor challenge for HP compared with megatrends such as the increasing commoditization of IT.
At a hearing in Washington last week, HP took the verbal equivalent of a thousand arrows from members of Congress who accused it of unethical and possibly illegal behavior as it investigated boardroom leaks to the press.
Like Glaser, several other corporate users said they continue to back Mark Hurd, HP's CEO and now board chairman, for improving operational efficiency and customer support. But some added caveats.
Steven Naylor, director of IT at FHLBank Topeka, a federal home loan bank in Kansas, said the scandal is a test of Hurd's management ability. Hurd's response could determine "whether he is the right person to lead HP," Naylor said. "He is being challenged in areas that he has not been challenged before. The way he handles this will probably dictate the future of the company."
Users should be paying attention to the scandal, Naylor added. "It's on my radar because of the Enron investigation and the subsequent result of the need to be sensitive to these types of things," he said.
Hurd "has been a real change agent at HP, and we see him as responsible for improved performance of the company," said Peter Walton, CIO at Amerada Hess Corp. He said that Hurd has the right team in place - citing CIO Randy Mott in particular - and that the changes made by Hurd are becoming institutionalized at HP. The scandal is a distraction that could hurt HP's stock price but not necessarily the company's performance, Walton said.
But, Walton added, "if it turns out that Mark has operated knowingly with anything less than flawless integrity, we would have some issues with HP going forward."
Hurd maintained that he had only partial information about the leak probe and that he failed to dive into the details. "I wish I had asked more questions," Hurd testified.
Martin Reynolds, an analyst at Gartner Inc., said the investigation is focusing more on the people involved than on the company. "This is a question of individual accountability, rather than HP's accountability," he said.
In one way, Hurd has gained from the scandal. He was named board chairman after Patricia Dunn's departure and now joins the ranks of other corporate CEOs who are also chairmen, including Samuel Palmisano at IBM, and Jeffrey Immelt at General Electric Co.
Giving Hurd both titles runs counter to the trend in corporate governance. Companies generally favor splitting the two roles, figuring that "having an independent chairman would strengthen the authority of the board over management," said Keith Bishop, a partner at law firm Buchalter Nemer in Los Angeles.
It has been almost a month since the news of HP's probe broke, and for now, most users say the scandal isn't affecting them.
Even if Hurd is preoccupied with the scandal's fallout, the business processes he has established at HP are working, said Robert Fort, IT director at Virgin Entertainment Group Inc. in Los Angeles.
Bill Lewkowski, CIO at Metropolitan Health Corp. in Grand Rapids, Mich., said the episode could even be healthy for the company, by weeding out discontent on the board and solidifying management even further. With Hurd occupying both the CEO and chairman roles, "I have even more confidence in the company right now," Lewkowski said.
Verizon Wireless Inc. has sued Hewlett-Packard Co.'s (HP's) private investigators for faking their identities to obtain other people's phone records, a practice known as "pretexting."
In a case filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in New Jersey, Verizon asked a judge to award it damage payments and to block the defendants from gaining any more records.
Verizon said it did not know the investigators' identities, but defined them as "John and Jane Does" who were retained by HP in 2005 and 2006 to investigate confidential information leaks from HP's board of directors, according to the lawsuit.
Those people obtained private information about Verizon Wireless customers by using pretexting calls to gain access to the company's protected computers and data storage facilities. They then sold that information. Both actions violate the national Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, Verizon said.
The scandal has already forced Patricia Dunn to resign as HP board chairman, and sparked investigations by the California attorney general and the U.S. House of Representatives.
In court papers, Verizon described how a woman called Verizon customer service on May 17, 2005, asking to see phone records for an HP director. She called back three days later, arranging to block text messages to that phone and logging on to the person's online account. Then, on Feb. 1, 2006, someone called Verizon customer service again, asking for the number of a second phone on that account. Later that day, the person logged into the account again and changed the password, this time from a computer with a different IP (Internet Protocol) address.
The next day, someone called Verizon and asked to see call records of the director's spouse. Verizon workers grew suspicious and placed a warning on the account. Someone called again on March 1, offered the spouse's Social Security number and asked for the mobile phone number. Already wary, Verizon workers called the mobile phone and found that the customer's voicemail did not match the caller's voice. When someone tried again to access the records on March 14, Verizon workers refused.
Verizon hopes the lawsuit will help restore its customers' confidence in the security of their records, saying that its reputation has been harmed by the spying.
"Verizon goes to great lengths to protect confidential customer information," including training its customer service representatives to identify the schemes used by illegal data brokers, the suit said.
Despite those precautions, the HP investigators used "fraud, trickery and deceit" by making pretexting calls to Verizon representatives to gain unauthorized online account access, the suit alleges. Verizon said it will update the suit once it learns their identities.
By Ben Ames
