BoingBoing reader and interesting feller Patrick Tufts has spotted an amusing bit of info related to the HP "pretexting" story: it seems HP outsourced their investigation to a PI who writes a
newsletter about the dangers of identity theft. EEERNGH! EEERNGH! Irony overload alarm activated! Snip:
News stories about HP's ill-conceived investigation of board members' and reporters' phone records now identify the "pretexting" private investigator as Ronald DeLia, owner of Massachusetts-based Security Outsourcing Solutions.
Targets of HP's investigation included HP board member and Kleiner Perkins co-founder Tom Perkins, who quit the board and then wrote a letter to HP describing how investigators fraudulently accessed his personal phone records by using personal information such as his social security number.
Reader comment:
Tim Howland says,
It's even more ironic! the security outsourcing firm identified with messing with HP (and who wrote a newsletter about how to avoid identity theft) seem to have missed cardinal rule number 1- keeping your info out of online directories. A simple whois lookup on the gumshoe's domain reveals their home address and home phone number: Domain Name — SECURITY-OUTSOURCING.COM (…) Link. How could HP hire such clowns? Is the whole thing a carefully coordinated conspiracy to kick out an incompetent board of directors?
