H-P Gets Humble

Updated from 5:17 p.m. EDT

Speaking to the press at Hewlett-Packard's(HPQ) Palo Alto, Calif., headquarters, CEO Mark Hurd apologized for the company's conduct in spying on board members and journalists and outlined a series of actions the company was taking as various government inquiries into the affair gain steam.

H-P Chairwoman Patricia Dunn, who initiated the investigation, will resign effective immediately, said Hurd. Earlier this month, H-P had said Dunn would resign in early 2007.

Hurd's comments represented his first disclosure about his role in the affair, since details of H-P's controversial efforts to discover the source of media leaks became public more than two weeks ago. Those efforts, it is now clear, included using the social security numbers of board members and journalists to access their personal phone records, as well as physical surveillance of one board member and his family at his home and on a business trip.

"What began as an investigation with the best intentions has ended up turning in a direction we could not have possibly anticipated," said Hurd.

Hurd provided a timeline of H-P's leak investigation, which he said consisted of two distinct phases between 2005 and 2006, and his personal involvement. He said he attended a couple of meetings during which updates of the investigation were provided.

Hurd said he had not read a March 2006 report addressed to him and others, in which the investigative team acknowledges using pretexting -- the practice of impersonating somebody to gain access to their personal information -- as a means of identifying the source of the leaks, albeit with the assurance that the practice was legal.