HP announced that its chairwoman, Patricia Dunn, will resign her position as chair of HP’s board to smooth things over over the scandal that has embroiled the company for the past several weeks. The scandal started when someone at HP, presumably someone on the board, leaked sensitive company information to the press. In order to find out exactly what was said and to whom, a technique called “pretexting” was used to obtain phone records of the reporters who published the information, and the phone records of several people on the board at HP.

“Pretexting” is a technique that involves using some easily obtainable personal information, let’s say the last four digits of a social security number and a spouse’s last name (both of which were allegedly used in this situation) to obtain a great deal of personal information by pretending you’re the person for whom the information is about. Here’s how it works; I call the phone company with the last four of your social security number. I have your address, which is available easily from the phone book, per say. I call your phone company and pretend to be you. They ask me to verify your address, which I got from the phone book, and the last four digits of your social security number for security purposes, which I happen to have. With this information, I’ve opened the floodgates of personal and private information, including calling records, billing information, and more-I can find out who you called and who called you as far back as the phone company cares to tell me. This is the process that privately hired investigators used to obtain the calling information of board members at HP and the reporters involved.

The problem with this process is that it’s illegal and counts as “deceptive trade practices,” which is explicitly illegal, and it reeks of identity theft-when identity thieves do it, they do it to pretend they’re you and take your money, and this situation, although it involved no financial theft, is no better. Additionally, federal authorities are poking their nose around this story to see if any additional laws have been broken. The investigation and subsequent press storm has been much much worse for HP than the actual scandal was; and as a result the chairwoman on whose watch this all took place, Patricia Dunn, has been forced to step down, although she’ll retain a seat on the board-she just won’t be chair any longer. HP CEO and President Mark Hurd will take her place, but the investigations go on.

[ PC World :: HP Chairman to Step Down Amid Scandal ]