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Australian Journalist Arrested, Released After Detailing Facebook Flaws
CuteSteveJobs writes "Yesterday Australian journalist Ben Grubb was arrested by police at an IT Security Conference after an article Grubb wrote about vulnerabilities in Facebook's privacy controls was published on Fairfax media websites. Grubb was later released, but police have confiscated his iPad. Late last month police tried to force fellow Fairfax journalist Linton Besser into revealing who leaked information about corruption. At the time, Fairfax editor Peter Fray called it an unprecedented attack on the freedom of the press. Australia has no explicit right to free speech and lacks shield laws to protect investigative journalists from having to reveal sources."
We should invade Australia to help bring democracy to the region?
Australians defending their government against Americans talking about how crazy it is.
People applying their IANAL interpretation of laws... of other countries.
A frost pist that is off topic.
Several jokes about Foster's.
Retort that 'real IrishmenAustralians don't drink Foster's.
Jokes about 'Facebook police'.
Question about Men at Work.
Defense of vegemite.
Vegemite vs. marmite discussion.
Complaints about submission/slashdot in general.
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
...was that he published a photo that the presenter obtained without permission from the private profile of the wife of another security researcher (that the presenter publicly acknowledges that he doesn't like). The vulnerability disclosure does seem to be very very childish and unethical. The re-publishing of the photo does seem to be unethical too, but not illegal, which i assume is why he hasn't been charged with any offence.
Why should Sony be the only company to employ dirty tactics like that?
in the USA, Judith Miller was thrown in jail for refusing to reveal a source
James Risen has been subpoenad about the source for his book on the CIA
one of those suspected of being his source, Jeffrey Sterling, is under an Espionage Act prosecution, with possible 10 years jail time, for talking about CIA mistakes in the late 1990s.
Then there is Stephen Kim, another Espionage act case; his crime? telling a reporter North Korea might test a nuke.
Then there is Stephen Drake, espionage act case, for whistleblowing against the NSA ... several of his friends homes were raided by the FBI, guns drawn. one of them is a diabetic with one leg. as
One of the UK ambassadors to Uzbekistan, Craig Murray, wrote 2 books about what he saw there; torture, rape, abuse, violence, mass slavery, murder, all committed by our 'ally' in the 'global war on terror'. oh and i forgot to mention the children being anally raped in front of their relatives to force confessions about being in league with al qaeda.
in the US, our ambassadors said nothing. when some kid, Bradley Manning, dumps a bunch of their emails, he gets thrown in solitary, naked, 23 hours a day, being asked every 5 minutes 'are you OK'.
so no, i personally find australia's laws and UK's laws to be ridiculous. but the US is kind of moving in the same direction. The Espionage Act in particular, is becoming a de-facto State Secrets Act by virtue of our past 2 presidents, our court system, our media, and our education system.
its bad all over.
who were sued by Sony, in part, for posting a number on a website.
We don't even have free speach over here, probably why this guy got arrested, and if i was him i wouldn't be expecting my ipad back.
Do you like eve isk
Yep, that's right the police chief equated receiving a "stolen" (copied) photo without permission to receiving a stolen TV. This is one time that "Copyright infringement is not theft" is very appropriate. Apparently our police just don't get it.
That tells you how rational and well informed our Police are. If it involves IT or computers they're just maroons.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
Send him to that prison island, England.
He was later released without charge
So a person was bought in by police for questioning. Which as I understand it is legal in most western nations.
/. It must be required penance for having the better beaches and a working economy.
But it is very important to keep up the uninformed Australia bashing here on
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
Couldn't these Australian Journalists use an American as an anonymous proxy of sorts? That is, when you find a good source of information, tell him/her to reveal the information to an American, and then use that person as your source. You can then freely name your source, but that source can't be compelled by the Australian courts to name the original source.
... or beer :)
Every problem can be solved by adding a layer of indirection
There are no tiger attacks in my area and it's all because this rock I'm holding keeps the tigers away.
I know poking a stick at foreign jurisdictions is a popular past time on Slashdot (and this is sometimes with good reason) but it would be nice if blanket statements weren't thrown around quite so much about the state of laws in other countries. As usual with most things in life, the situations is generally more complex than can be summed up in a sentence or two.
From the summary:
"Australia has no explicit right to free speech and lacks shield laws to protect investigative journalists from having to reveal sources."
Though this isn't an inaccurate statement at a high level, it's not quite true...
Australia has no ~constitutional~ right to free speech, in that its Constitution does not contain a Bill of Rights like the American one. This is not unusual - most Westminster democracies have no such thing and generally have rights conferred by common law (case law) and/or statutory rights. And at least two jurisdictions DO have "explicit rights" to freedom of expression in Australia - the ACT and Victoria, which both have (statutory) 'Bills of Rights'.
Incidentally there have been proposals to introduce a constitutional Bill of Rights in the past. They have not been successful. There are as many arguments against an entrenched and absolute statement of rights, as there are for one - there are pros and cons in each case.
And as for shield laws - again, the jurisdiction matters. One state, NSW, does indeed have a shield law. The others don't, although I believe WA and a couple of others are working on one at the moment. However, as of March this year, a Federal shield law also passed both houses of the Federal Parliament in March this year and is currently awaiting Royal Assent.
So basically, Australia has some shield laws that may or may not apply depending on the case. In a NSW or Federal court, or a case regarding the NSW or Federal Police or a NSW or Federal law, yes, there are shield laws that apply. Otherwise, no, not at this point in time.
Yet, we can still get on a plane without being nudie scanned or having an invasive pat down, without having to take our shoes off, and without having to put all our liquids in plastic sandwich bags. Clearly this means we MUST have more rights you!
Yeah, see how drawing gross generalisations about the way a country operates based on a handful of very specific examples tend to be pretty much always be completely wrong?
...again! Because if you don't read/hear/see any problems, then they can be safely ignored. <massive sarcasm>
When will governments/law enforcement around the world accept that reponsible leaking of information is in everyones best interests (except the corrupt)?
(I guess the answer to that is: When governments/law enforcement cease to be corrupt.)
But I guess I'm preaching to the converted.
Actually he WAS arrested, the confusion occurs because although Grubb said he was arrested initially the police denied this and said he was only detained for questioning. It wasn't until the next day that they admitted that they actually had arrested him via twitter "Our bad @bengrubb was arrested for questioning briefly Our tweet last night was based on information provided at the time Apologies,". Furthermore they are copying all data on his ipad to trawl through, irrespective of if it is related to the case.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/05/18/3220071.htm
So, they arrested a journalist for covering the story and being possession of a photo.
They didn't arrest anyone else who was in possession of said photo.
They didn't arrest the person who allegedly hacked the photo and handed it out at a conference. In fact they didn't even talk to him. They let him leave the state, and now they say they can't talk to him because he's in another state. But they're still holding the journalists ipad, and analysing it, just in case something turns up.
And to make it worse, after the arresting the journo they denied arresting him for a day, then admitted arresting him.
Does anyone in the US want Queensland? It's a big state, got lots of nice things in it. You can have it, as long as you move it away from Australia ...
"We've all seen it happen on TV a zillion times. But when a police officer recited to me those well-rehearsed words – 'you have the right to remain silent ' – I felt sick in the stomach."
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/technology/technology-news/grubbs-story-privacy-news-and-the-strong-arm-of-the-law-20110518-1esn9.html
The Policeman who confiscated Grubb's iPad was Detective Superintendent Errol Coultis. "When I questioned under what legislation they had the right to seize my iPad, Coultis told me I was under arrest in relation to receiving unlawfully obtained property." Head of the Queensland police fraud squad, Brian Hay said accessing a photo without permission was the same as stealing a TV.
Amusingly the "Queensland Police Media Service" are into twitter damage control: "Police can legally seize material which may be evidence of a crime. It will be returned as soon as we can do so."
Grubb said "I was told that forensics officers were going to make a complete copy of the information on my iPad, whether it related to this matter or not."
An absolutely disgraceful peformance by the Queensland Police involved.
The expert, Christian Heinrich.... {showed} how he had been able to gain access to the Facebook photos of the wife of a rival security expert, without a username or password.
Sounds like a breach of the Queensland's Criminal Code Act 1899 Section 408E parts 1 and 2 to me.
but he went through it personally with me straight afterwards.
Probably using Grubb's iPad I would imagine, hence the seizure.
When I questioned under what legislation they had the right to seize my iPad, Coultis told me I was under arrest in relation to receiving unlawfully obtained property.
I'm assuming under Queensland's Criminal Code Act 1899 Section 433.
Assuming Grubb let Christian Heinrich use his iPad for the act he's most likely in trouble, even if it was intellectual property. I'm not fully aware of the precedence regarding the definition of 'property' for the purposes of Section 433 and whether intellectual property is also covered under that definition so will be interesting to see what happens.
He was released without charge once everything became clear wasn't he? They are actually a lot better than some of them were twenty years ago. The formerly frequent fabricated trifecta of obscene language, resisting arrest and assaulting an (untouched) officer and the subsequent time in hospital and jail is unheard of now.
Those that gave false information to the Police that a crime had been committed are far more deserving of your disgust than Police that investigated and decided no charges should be laid.
No need for a search warrant over here in oz, they will break the door down with a sledge hammer then apply for a warrant latter if they find anything.
We don't get the nudie scan (probably a money issue) but expect everything else. My neighbor's 4 year old was patted down getting off a domestic flight.
Ben Grubb was officially questioned before he was arrested. The police interviewed him, found out his journalistic notes were on his iPad then arrested him to secure the iPad:
Female officer: Did you record your conversation with Christian?
Ben Grubb: I don't... I need to seek legal advice on that as well. I wrote notes. If that helps. But I think when you ask to record someone you need to seek their permission and.
Errol Coultis: Like we've done.
BG: Yeah just like you have. So yeah, I've written notes that kind of back up me if anything falls flat.
EC: Sure. Are you willing to tell us how you made those notes on a device?
BG: On an iPad.
EC: Are you in possession of that iPad?
BG: Yep.
EC: You are? All right, is there anything else you wish to say?
BG: So what's the process now?
It's a direct attack on the free press. What other circumstances can the police use to get access to journalist material? In a press conference the cop mentioned if the iPad was in a car or house they'd need a warrant to seize it. Ben Grubb thought he was helping the police, and that was his mistake. It shows you can't talk to the police without legal advice. Stay quiet. If Ben had done so, they wouldn't have known about the story notes and he'd still have his iPad.
Press conference audio: http://stilgherrian.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/brianhay-20110518-final.mp3
There was a high court case years ago about a case like there. The Australian Broadcasting Corporation won in Australia's highest court, which ruled it had not committed an unlawful act by broadcasting video that had been obtained by trespass by a third party.
Must be nice, being able to legally steal peoples' iPads (and presumably other devices, like laptops) for no apparent reason.
Friend: "The NIC is misconfigured..." Me: "No prob, I'll just telnet in and fix it." *Silence*
Didn't read the articles, did you? The police asked for his iPad, when he refused they arrested him and seized the iPad, then released him sans iPad.
The point of the arrest was to get the iPad. They're manipulating the law in a way that attacks citizen's rights.
On a related note, does the iPads security actually encrypt all data stored on the device?
`VII.The Congress acted wrongly. For part of Amendment I (when part of the Constitution) is anti-constitutional: [Congress shall make no law] respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or [abridging the freedom of speech]..., also On September 25, 1789, [Congress transmitted to the state legislatures twelve proposed amendments], two of which, having to do with Congressional representation and Congressional pay, were not adopted. The remaining ten amendments became the Bill of Rights.. For Congress made a law abridging its own freedom of speech (as a legislator). It also made a law forbidden by the (then amended) Constitution: because some part of Amendment I is a counterexample to itself (the bracketed fragment in the next to last quote). Moreover, the lawlessness of that Amendment occurs only after its being made a Law, since it is exactly the Fact of its incorporation in the Constitution which is judged once incorporated – which `lawlessness' is at least logically posterior to that alteration – (by a particularization to itself) lawless; it follows that we have there an ex post facto law, which is against the constitution.' Excerpted form something, somewhere.
The unusual only thing here is your surprise. We probably need a lot more articles like this one to make people aware of this because this is the sort of thing Police forces, Customs etc have been doing everywhere for almost as long as personal or business computers have existed and then going for fishing expeditions to find evidence of any crime they can find on the devices. See also the confiscation of telephones on slim pretexts.
There is a rather interesting transcript of the interview here.
Sure, they didn't arrest him, but that was some pretty serious questioning.
(Note that I'm not blaming the victim here, just pointing out a fact people tend to forget)
This is why you never, ever talk to the police without a lawyer. A good lawyer would have asserted his client's full rights out of the bat, suggested him what to say and how to say it, and probably threatened to sue for harassment if they wanted to confiscate the iPad. At that point most policemen would have given up as "not worth the hassle".
Instead, they just saw a boy playing with toys, and made him frame himself. He completely missed the big picture here; when asked if he thought a crime had been committed, he basically said "it's for the hacker to define that" -- "crimes" are defined by criminals now? It's for the *police* to decide, and they did indeed decide, probably because they saw the boy being somehow ambivalent about it ("when in doubt, charge" is a common police attitude in many parts of the world). Again, a good lawyer would have stopped him from saying anything -- you don't debate the fine points of the law while under official questioning, because it doesn't matter and it can only hurt your case. Let the lawyers debate it for you, they'll do it better than you ever could.
"Anything you say can be used against you" is not really understood by the common folk until they have this sort of experience. It should be taught in school.
-- Let's go Viridian.
Those that gave false information to the Police that a crime had been committed are far more deserving of your disgust than Police that investigated and decided no charges should be laid.
Which still does not excuse the Police's behavior, a point you seem to not be able to understand.
He gained access to photos from a womans Facebook account, and published them on the Internet. This woman then made a complaint to the police, which they followed up. No charges have been filed.
Nothing to see here people. This isn't a big conspiracy. Facebook themselves didn't send the goon squad. Simply the police following up a complaint by another citizen.
people, for now, still do.
he posted a number to allow you to boot linux on your machine, which the company promised was possible in its advertising material.
there is an indictment right now of a person in Boston for being involved with wikileaks.
one of the charges?
"stealing government property"
they claim those digital files were government property.
since government documents are uncopyrightable in the United States, it doesnt make much sense.
Since Australia is a member of the UN, the right to free speech is quite explicit there too.
Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 19:
Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.
Seems like the Hitler days are not so far behind, are they?
If you are a journalist there is no excuse not to be using a blackberry with encryption enabled. By using an unsecured ipad he has compromised the security and safety of all his contacts. there are acceptable android encryption programs but they are not secure against a rootkit and they do require that you know what you are doing.
Snowden and Manning are heroes.
the radiation levels were several million times higher than normal and now the numbers are being doctored and "managed" for as long as possible. Additionally, you could see the stored fuel rods blow sky high in the medias own footage used to explain how everything was ok.
Okay if you RTFA you'll see that what he did wrong wasn't exposing a security flaw. He TOOK ADVANTAGE of the security flaw to access a photo that was supposed to be inaccessible to him. The owner of that photo complained that he had illegally obtained that photo, which he admitted to doing in his published article.
/. here is one. He learned that ABC Bank had a weak three tumbler lock on their side door. So one night he picked the lock, walked in, and took a photo of himself by the vault and published it saying "hey ABC Bank has such poor security I was able to break in on the weekend and take this photo of myself as proof."
Since we like analogies on
Why would anyone be surprised that the police showed up to arrest him. He printed an admission that he hacked in and acquired private information from someone's Facebook account. The only problem here is that the cops failed to charge him with the correct crime.
-- QED
I wonder if they can access the encrypted data?
As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a reference to Godwin's Law approaches 1
Don't leak with a trail, splatter everything you can everywhere you can, and regard the Man as your fucking enemy.
Expose shit.
Break things for fun.
Act with malice.
Act with hatred, and learn to laugh while you do it.
There is no hope for peaceful change without catastrophe, so bring on catastrophe, for the fun of it. Eventually that will troll such intolerable over-reaction that the public (geeks aren't the "public") will be pissed off.
You get punished for getting caught, not for whatever it is you did.
Don't get caught. Conventional beliefs and conventional "morality" are intended to make you a slave. Decide if you prefer something different.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
Happened to me in QLD 6 months ago. No jail at least the judge wasn't as stupid as the police, but they brought an ambulance out because of the massive hole in my head that was ground out on the road by officer thug's knee. I was resisting arrest because I didn't raise my hands fast enough (they were on the way up just not as fast as this guy wanted). Then they took me back to my house and threatened to break the door down if I didn't give them the key (they were looking for something to get me on to justify the violence). Followed by dragged all over town to multiple police stations and eventually left in the middle of Brisbane in the middle of the night (because I complained about their conduct). At the time I hadn’t even done a thing wrong. Don't expect any justice either cops back each other up and then its your word against two police peoples words.