…seems to be the new word for what used to be called social engineering. Or lying. Brought to you courtesy of the board of Hewlett Packard.

The last word in this story isn’t said yet, but for now it looks like there will be some changes in HP’s board. HP used to be about great products (remember HP calculators and laser printers?) and innovation in its many divisions. You could trust products bought from them because of the solid engineering culture. Now it increasingly is beginning to look like a hollow shell, making most of its money on printer cartridges (for the last 8 years or so). Now the Board seems preoccupied with spying on each other.

How the mighty have fallen. And kudos to Tom Perkins for having some sense of ethics.

(Via Scoble, Techdirt, and just about everyone else)

Update: Now Perkins’ letter is available at The Smoking Gun. That’s a web site I would love to see here in Norway.