Verizon Wireless Sues HP Investigators

On the same day HP execs were being grilled by a House Subcommittee over their use of pretexting and other methods to rout out the source of press leaks, Verizon Wireless on Thursday announced it had sued 20 unnamed data brokers over fraudulent access of customer records related to HP's investigation.

Federal law permits the so-called "John Doe" lawsuits when the exact identity of the defendant is not known. The plaintiff is then given an amount of time to discover their identities. In this case, the defendants are named "Jane and John Does" I through XX.

The lawsuit, filed in a Trenton, N.J. federal court, claims that 20 individuals used "fraud, trickery and deceit to access confidential customer information" of Verizon's users. Both members of the news media and of HP's board of directors that were subject to the pretexting apparently use Verizon Wireless phones.

Verizon accuses the data brokers of using both pretexting and customer information to access call records online. The company has spent more than $100,000 to investigate the fraud, it claims. In an interesting twist, Verizon's vice president and chairman Larry Babbio is also an HP board member.

The suit, however, does not specify whether or not Babbio's call records were accessed by the defendants. It does ask for an injunction preventing further access, as well as unspecified damages.

While pretexting is not necessarily illegal, the recent HP press leak scandal has shone new light on the practice. Congress is attempting to pass legislation, but it has stalled in both the House and Senate.