

Cisco VP Vows to Make Hunting Secret-Leaker His ‘Hobby’ - RobAley
http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2012/11/cisco-vp-vows/

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apawloski
So an exec wants to stop potentially embarrassing leaks? What's surprising
about this? Also the fact that he worked for the CIA 20 years ago seems
disingenuously noted by the author; I don't think anybody expects him to
kidnap employees and detain them in torture camps, although I suspect the
author is trying to invoke that "secret agent" connotation.

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RobAley
There is nothing wrong in general with stopping leaks.

However, his email in particular, bearing in mind it wasn't sent to the leaker
alone but to all (mostly innocent) staff, comes of as almost threatening
(granted not in a life threatening way, but a job and happiness way). I'm sure
it won't help morale at Cisco. He may think that it will only worry anyone
thinking of making a leak, but innocent staff will worry too feeling
threatened in case they accidentally let something slip to a loved one or
such. Such tactics are necessary in, e.g. the CIA, where "loose lips sink
ships" (i.e. lives are in danger), but are not appropriate in a civil
commercial enterprise like Cisco.

In my mind, he would have been better served sending a polite, professional
reminder of the rules and the penalties for breaking them.

He may even have been better served trying to fix the problems that caused the
"embarrassing" situation to occur in the first place (the price gouging of
public institutions) and cause discontent among his staff.

At the end of the day, the leak of the email kinda shows it isn't deterring
the leaker(s).

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jlgreco
As someone pointed out when this story hit slashdot, I think if anything this
letter means that the guilty party has relatively little to worry about. If
they had any idea at all who did it, I don't think they would be sending
letters like that.

~~~
nitrogen
Or, they varied the spelling, punctuation, spacing, or other attributes of
every copy, so they could uniquely identify whoever leaked this version.

~~~
jlgreco
Could be, though if they need to do that it probably suggests the same thing.
Also, there would be little guarantee of it being leaked by the same person,
considering the rather ridiculous nature of it.

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ChuckMcM
Interesting memo. The folks at Google were livid when early pictures of the
Android G1 leaked, the contractor responsible got fired over it. I knew of a
few other cases as well, Google kept pretty tight tabs on what was going on
(aka surveillance) so leaks were identified pretty quickly.

That people don't take confidentiality seriously enough to not send it out to
the world is a problem. The response though seems a bit over the top. I
suspect it would have been more productive to acknowledge the angst which
results in this sort of behavior than go all 'black helicopter.'

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happywolf
Ten years ago, the Cisco brand was equivalent to high-end, enterprise
networking gears. Any company that used Cisco gears would get a 'wow' from
people who were in the know. However the trend reversed and I have not heard
any of my IT friends mentioning it for quite sometime, aside the aperiodic
snide remarks on its price tags.

~~~
mhurron
Honestly it was the same with Sun. Ten years ago ( a little more really ) you
were still dealing with the growth, and perceptions, related to the dotcom
era. Sun was "ooo wow" Cisco was "ooo wow".

However, routers and switches are everywhere now. So are UNIX servers. Cisco
and Sun became normal. Everyone had them, everyone ran them and for a lot of
people you simply never asked 'Do I get a Cisco router for this,' it just
happens.

Cisco still makes high end enterprise devices. It's just normal now.

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ohashi
Sounds like a good use of a VP's time. Hunt down unhappy employees and lower
morale instead of working on their products.

~~~
lmm
Maybe it'll keep him out of the way of those getting work done.

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Jabbles
Surely the first step would have been to send a bait-ridden fingerprinted
email to everyone and wait for it to be leaked? (When the article says "all",
it means the small portion of Cisco underneath him.)

~~~
mdonahoe
I was thinking the same thing. I wonder how many slightly different versions
of this email exist.

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freehunter
Brad Reese has made the claim that Cisco should stop infringing on their
employee's "free speech" right. Perhaps Brad Reese doesn't know what the right
to free speech entails, but I can assure him that it does not give employees
the right to leak internal corporate documents and not get fired or prosecuted
for it.

<http://www.bradreese.com/blog/11-6-2012-afternoon.htm>

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at-fates-hands
I think its hilarious he sent out the email thinking it would scare the
responsible party. Instead, his email threatening OP got sent to the same blog
shortly thereafter.

Whomever it is better take care, if more stuff gets leaked, they could be
looking at corporate espionage charges. Not something I'm sure someone who
used to work at the CIA would take lightly.

