The Weekly Round-Up: 22.09.06

The good, albeit short, name of HP has been dragged through some of the week's murkier headlines in follow-ups to last week's news that it went to great - and ethically questionable - lengths to ascertain the identity of a mole leaking comments from within the company.

The latest twist in a tale of corporate skulduggery that has already seen HP's chairman, Patricia Dunn, announce her intention to resign from her post - though not until January - after she was exposed for instigating an internal witch-hunt and ordering the unauthorised accessing of journalists' phone records, has now seen HP CEO Mark Hurd linked to an elaborate sting operation which looked to further keep tabs on a journalist to uncover the identity of the mole.

This latest revelation throws into question whether Hurd himself is really the right man to take on the chairman's role when Dunn vacates that office in January.

Initially HP was found to have accessed private phone records of two journalists from silicon.com sister site CNET News.com who had cited an anonymous source within HP in an article. Since then it has come to light a third CNET News.com journalist, along with a handful of others at similarly well-known publications, was also investigated in this way. The coverage earlier this year displeased Dunn and she set about the task of finding out who'd spilled the beans. (Ed note: Beans and an HP source... ? We're just a few rashers and some toast away from a very nice breakfast.)

HP also accessed the phone records of board member Tom Perkins who subsequently quit the board in protest at what was going on. Perkins wrote in a letter to the board of directors: "I resigned solely to protest the questionable ethics and the dubious legality of the chairman's methods."

Worse still HP reportedly employed investigators to carry out physical surveillance on CNET News.com journalist Dawn Kawamoto to track her movements and also secretly investigated the father of another journalist, trying to establish a link back to the HP board.

Now it has transpired that Hurd was aware of a secondary plot - again targeting Kawamoto - to plant false information in emails sent to CNET News.com, purporting to be tip-offs, in an attempt to flush out the leak. CNET News.com didn't take the bait. Also in the firing line now is an HP employee named Kevin Hunsaker, whose irony-rich job title is 'senior ethics officer'. You couldn't make it up.

It's an almighty mess and a PR disaster for HP. The fact Dunn and co wanted to launch this investigation suggests they were aware of the power the journalists concerned wielded in the industry. As such, spying on them and running the risk of seriously pissing them off is clearly very stupid indeed.

The fact that almost every other journalist in the industry has also rallied to the cause is, well, not greatest news either for HP - to say nothing of Congress, the FBI, the state and federal prosecutors…

The folks at Dell and Toshiba must be laughing themselves silly at the plight of rival HP... or rather they would be if they weren't so busy dealing with the whole dodgy laptop batteries issue.

The latest twist in this saga saw Virgin Atlantic this week ban passengers from using Apple and Dell laptops on flights over fears batteries could potentially overheat and spark fires in extreme cases.

Passengers wanting to use those laptops must show they have removed the battery and are using the AC power supply... which for business travellers means there's another compelling reason to press for that upgrade to Premium Economy or Upper Class.

Changing tack completely... is it just the Round-Up or does anybody else think this advert on the Evening Standard website comes across as a little tasteless? Follow the link, you'll see what we mean - but don't make us explain it.

Moving on, there are few people involved in the world of IT who the Round-Up would actually cross the street to talk to. Bill Gates perhaps ("Couldn't lend me some money could you Mr Gates?"), Larry Ellison ("Can I have a go in your jet fighter please Mr Ellison"), Steve Jobs ("Why doesn't my iPod work?") and maybe the CEO of HP... though he'd probably already know what we were going to say.

However, somebody the Round-Up has a great deal of time for is Steve Linford, the founder of antispam group Spamhaus.

Over the years Linford and his cohorts have tracked down and blacklisted some of the world's most pernicious spammers operating on donations and benevolent funding.

In short he's a bloody good bloke.

So news this week that Spamhaus has been hit with a bill for $11.7m in damages by a US court should be a major concern.

Spamhaus, however, is standing its ground, undaunted, arguing that the ruling - handed out in a US court - isn't worth the paper it's written on and stating it has no intention of stumping up the cash.

Spamhaus said on its website: "As spamming is illegal in the UK, an Illinois court ordering a British organisation to stop blocking incoming Illinois spam in Britain goes contrary to UK law which orders all spammers to cease sending spam in the first place."

The Spamhaus website also doggedly maintains that David Linhardt, who brought the action, is a spammer despite his protestations to the contrary.

Meanwhile, Linhardt says of Spamhaus: "Spamhaus.org is a fanatical, vigilante organisation that operates in the US with blatant disregard for US law. Spamhaus routinely exposes their customers and volunteers to extreme legal risk by continuing to engage in improper blacklisting, defamation, extortion and blackmail in the name of fighting spam."

Strong words indeed - though not words likely to resonate too strongly with most of the organisations, companies and individuals familiar with the work Spamhaus does.

Dean Drako, the CEO of anti-spam appliance-maker Barracuda Networks, said: "The Spamhaus guys are good guys and they are doing the right thing. It is a pity that the court system in the US can be abused in such a fashion as it is."

Worrying news reached Silicon Towers this week about the boss of London Underground who reportedly lost £100,000 to fraudsters.

Tube CEO Michael Brown was left out of pocket and deeply dismayed (include your own joke here about him now knowing how his average customer feels) after his bank account was hacked into and huge bills run up in his name. At one point bailiffs turned up on Brown's doorstep demanding payments on bills that Brown knew nothing of.

Cameroon national Antoine Pollgouater was convicted this week for handling a share of the ill-gotten gains, though he denied all charges, claiming he received his £50,000 from a bloke down the pub who he claimed wanted to invest in a pancake business.

Which seems plausible.

For his part in the £100,000 sting, Pollgouater was sentenced to 12 months in prison. However, seeing as he had already served six months in prison while on remand the judge at Middlesex Guildhall Crown Court said he was free to go.

Cue dropped jaws from the police. Detective sergeant Lisa Baptiste, of the British Transport Police, called the sentence "a green light to commit fraud".

silicon.com was dismayed to hear this week that our readers in Zimbabwe have been unable to view our site after internet access in the country was cut off.

It seems the government had failed to pay its bills and Intelsat, the company which provides satellite broadband connectivity to Zimbabwe, decided to slash the bandwidth it provides until payment is received.

Daniel Musa Suso, a Zimbabwean business man, said: "This is outrageous. With such low bandwidth I am not able to watch the excellent video silicon.com has published this week of an interview with Paul Coby, CIO of British Airways.

"I can't even read the text story accompanying the video or any of the other brilliant content silicon.com has produced this week - such as a very thought-provoking leader on the subject of terrorism being used as an excuse by governments looking to diminish our civil liberties."

OK - Daniel Musa Suso didn't say that... in fact he doesn't even exist (or not as far as we know). We just made up the name. But these are worrying times - not least of all because the internet provides access to international news - a vital resource for Zimbabweans living under the regime of President Robert Mugabe.

The government-owned TelOne owes Intelsat $700,000 and until it is paid it seems likely many Zimbabweans will be starved of connectivity.

TelOne is now relying upon selling some tobacco - having branched out into farming, rather than because it is hawking a sports bag full of smokes around pubs - before it can pay the bill... which all sounds like a bedrock foundation on which to build a business model.

However, with Zimbabwe's economy going downhill faster than a greased cheetah with a rocket pack, shortages of food and fuel and the highest rate of inflation in the world, it seems remedying issues of internet access may at some stage take something of a back seat.

And who's to blame for all of this? Britain is, according to Mugabe. Definitely not him. Oh no, because he's squeaky clean... give or take a bit of torture and a highly questionable record on human rights.

And finally, marketing strategy of the week... month... hell, YEAR, goes to Vertical Response who you most likely have not heard of. However, that won't stop you from enjoying this.

The company has put together a song - or a 'rap' as the kids these days call it - about its product and the fact it is now available on Salesforce.com's AppExchange.

Furthermore, it's all done to the tune of Vanilla Ice's classic 90s masterpiece 'Ice, ice baby'.

"Yo! VIP - let's kick it," it begins - which makes you realise it's already going to be a fairly unique entry into the world of IT marketing. For the record, the rapper in question goes by the moniker 'Furious Alf', according to Janine Popick CEO of Vertical Response.

"Alright stop, collaborate and listen,
VR's back with a brand new invention,
A new app that integrates tightly,
Email and postcards daily and nightly,
Will it ever stop? Yo I don't know,
Install the app and let's go... "

The Round-Up's only criticism at this point is with the line "will it ever stop? Yo I don't know". What kind of product testing are they doing? Where's the quality assurance? If you sign up to use Vertical Response's product then you've a right to assume they know whether it will 'stop' or not.

(OK... perhaps they didn't mean that line literally, it's doubtless artistic licence... the Round-Up is down with that.)

Of course it goes on - you can listen for yourself - but it leaves the Round-Up wondering 'what next?'.

Promoting your company to the tune of 'Ice, ice baby' sounds very much like the result of a meeting that included the phrase 'Well I don't know... almost everything else has been done'. It also sounds like the result of a meeting that included the phrase 'Oh go on then, I'm not driving, so why not'.

But, whatever you say, it caught our attention - so they've done something right.

Perhaps Microsoft might like to consider promoting Vista to the tune of 'You can't touch this' (or possibly, shouldn't touch this, until at least service pack 2.0).

And finally, finally, can the Round-Up and the wider silicon.com family wish the very best to everybody taking part in Byte Night tonight. Some of the UK's biggest names in technology will be sleeping out tonight in the capital to highlight the issue of teenage homelessness (see here for more info).

It's a very worthy cause, so hats off to all of you.

• Virgin Trains goes wi-fi

• Murdoch dispatches wife to China

• Students ditch booze queues with RFID pub tables

• 'Dust for prints' after a security crisis, warn experts

• 3G: Are you planning for what comes next?