Morphy Institute of Reason Thought & Humor

Thursday, October 05, 2006

Missing the story at HP

I’ve been superficially following this story about Hewlett Packard executives accused of breaking some privacy laws (which don’t seem to exist yet). What is never touched on or mentioned is what I think the real story is about. In a nutshell, someone on the HP board was leaking confidential inside info to the media. HP did an investigation and found out who was doing it. Now some at HP are charged with crimes against privacy because of the investigation. You’ve probably figured it out by now, but my question is “what about the guy who leaked the information?” Isn’t he guilty of breaking these ‘privacy’ laws? Where’s the outrage against him. I say more power to HP, too bad they didn’t finish the job the old fashioned way and break this guy’s kneecaps.

posted by Murphy "Mac" Morphy at 12:28 PM

3 Comments:

  • BTW, I think HP make the best calculators in the world, bar none. (Sorry Doc.) I’ve been using the reverse polish notation on my HP calculator for so long now that I can’t use a calculator with an equal button.

    By Blogger Murphy "Mac" Morphy, at Thu Oct 05, 12:29:00 PM CDT  

  • I'm no lawyer, but leaking coprporate data probably isn't a criminal matter, but a civil one. If they catch him / her, they can fire / sue. And in this case, it would not seem that a board member would leak anything damaging to the company, just damaging to other board members. This all just seems to be back-stabbing at the boardroom level. Except some folks seem to have crossed the line and knowingly committed crimes. BTW, I have always disliked RPN calculators and still carry my trusty old TI-25, more out of habit than anything else.

    By Blogger Dr. Steven Morphy-Godchaux III, at Fri Oct 06, 08:59:00 AM CDT  

  • I have not followed it but I have seen some stuff raising the issue of whether the members of the board (and that is who the leaker was) have a duty of keeping things confidential. Put another way: It don't seem like an open and shut case that they do hafta keep the stuff on the QT.

    By Blogger Philip Seymour Morphy, at Mon Oct 09, 10:49:00 AM CDT  

Post a Comment

<< Home