Personal Privacy

H-P and Pretexting

Patricia Dunn is with Hewlett-Packard no more.  It all started with a leak; somebody was giving out important company secrets.  And with all the deft Hollywood style gumshoe-esque thinking Ms Dunn hired Private Investigator Ronald DeLia to find out just who it was.  The Private Investigators posed as H-P directors, as journalists, and more to root out the information.  But more to the point, all you really need is a social security number and a valid zip code and you can pose as the person and hack your way in.  This my friends is called pretexting.

I am NOT going to ask you if pretexting is morally acceptable.  That would be way too easy.  What I want to know is:

Should Patricia Dunn have been forced to resign?

 EXPECTATIONS:

Write a 5-7 page paper answering this question and upload it to coursenet by the end of this module, of course making your argument out in utilitarian and deontological terms.

Click Here for a definition of pretexting 

For a good explanation of the case, please read:

Suspicions and Spies in Silicon Valley; In a business saga, how Pattie Dunn's obsession with trying to root out the source of press reports ended with the covert tracking of directors' phone records.; [U.S. Edition Edition]

David A. Kaplan. Newsweek. New York: Sep 18, 2006. Vol.148, Iss. 10;  pg. 40

http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?index=0&did=1126840741&SrchMode=1&sid=2&Fmt=3&VInst=PROD&VType=PQD&RQT=309&VName=PQD&TS=1236292031&clientId=29440

For more information please read Liar, Liar, and Pretexting Mark Rasch, 2006-09-19

Of course, please search Google and our library for more information; this is an MBA level course and I expect to see a good amount of outside references; be creative.

I found this to be a very interesting assignment that is relevant to today’s focus regarding informational privacy and computer security. Hewlett-Packard’s decision to force Patricia Dunn to resign seems simple on the surface but is actually a very...