Unmasked - Ars Technica [34]
“We should have cut ties with HBGary sooner and raised internal concerns about this sooner,” Long told me. “This is a huge mistake for sure; we aren’t making excuses. But our company never approved hacking or carrying out dirty tricks on anyone.”
As for the engineer’s e-mail in which he said that the Team Themis project “got approval from Dr. Karp and the Board” on a new revenue sharing plan, Long said that it was simply “classic salesmanship (‘I need to get my manager’s permission for that. I really argued hard for you and got you this deal’). In our case we don’t have sales people so it is very transparent/obvious coming from a 26-year-old engineer. Dr. Karp and the Board did not know about the specifics of the proposal—including pricing.”
Berico
Berico, one of the three companies involved with Team Themis, initially promised a response to our questions about its handling of the situation. The company later changed its mind and declined to comment.
Berico did issue one public statement back on February 11, saying that it “does not condone or support any effort that proactively targets American firms, organizations or individuals. We find such actions reprehensible and are deeply committed to partnering with the best companies in our industry that share our core values. Therefore, we have discontinued all ties with HBGary Federal.”
The company added that it was “conducting a thorough internal investigation to better understand the details of how this situation unfolded and we will take the appropriate actions within our company.”
Aaron Barr
HBGary Federal was in the process of selling itself after the company couldn’t meet revenue projections and had difficulty paying taxes and salaries. On January 19, Penny Leavy (the largest single investor in HBGary Federal) suggested in an e-mail to Aaron Barr that he give the two companies considering a purchase a set of deadlines. Under her projected scenario, the two firms would bid on February 4 and HBGary Federal would make a final decision on February 7. On February 6, Anonymous attacked.
What happened to Barr? Anonymous loudly and angrily demanded that Penny Leavy fire him, since his list of Anonymous names could allegedly have gotten “innocent people” into serious trouble. Leavy made clear that HBGary Federal was a separate company from HBGary, one in which she owned only a 15 percent stake, and that she couldn’t simply “fire” the CEO.
Barr, too, had a stake in HBGary Federal. He couldn’t just be fired—but he told Ars that he has taken a leave of absence from the company in order to focus on some other things.
When he finally regained control of his Twitter account last week, Barr’s first new message since the attack said just about all there was left to say: “My deepest personal apology to all those that were negatively effected [sic] by the release of my e-mail into the public.”
Embattled HBGary Federal CEO Aaron Barr quit his job yesterday as the prospect of a Congressional investigation loomed. A dozen Democrats in Congress asked various Republican committee chairs to launch probes of HBGary Federal’s idea for a “reconnaissance cell” targeting pro-union organizers.
HBGary Federal was hacked last month by Anonymous after Aaron Barr believed he had unmasked much of the group’s leadership—and Barr’s entire cache of corporate e-mails was made public. Those messages revealed that Barr had joined up with two other security firms, Palantir and Berico, to pitch the powerhouse DC law firm of Hunton & Williams on an idea to go after union-backed websites who opposed the US Chamber of Commerce. The scheme, if adopted, would have cost the Chamber up to $2 million a month.
The three companies called themselves Team Themis, and instead of providing simple “business intelligence,” they had a few other ideas:
Create a false document, perhaps highlighting periodical financial information, and monitor to see if US Chamber Watch acquires it. Afterward, present explicit evidence proving that such transactions never occurred. Also, create a