(businessweek)
Hewlett-Packard Co. equipment worth more than $500,000 has been installed in computer rooms in Syria, underpinning a surveillance system being built to monitor e-mails and Internet use, according to documents from the deal and a person familiar with the installation.

The gear made by Palo Alto, California-based Hewlett- Packard would run a Damascus monitoring center for Syrian agents to track citizens' communications, and route data, according to blueprints and the person familiar with the system. The Italian company running the project, Area SpA, bought the equipment through resellers in Italy, according to the documents and the person familiar with the deal.

More than 3,500 people have died in Syria's crackdown on protesters since March. At the same time, technicians from Area were installing and testing the surveillance system, which also includes data-storage equipment from Sunnyvale, California-based NetApp Inc., a Nov. 4 article by Bloomberg News showed...
(more)