Australian journalist arrested for technology conference report

An Australian journalist was arrested after writing an article about vulnerabilities of Facebook's privacy controls.

Ben Grubb, deputy technology editor of the Sydney Morning Herald was later released without charge. But police retained his iPad.

His article, Security experts go to war: wife targeted, was a report from an IT security conference at a Queensland resort.

It was addressed by a security expert, Christian Heinrich, who demonstrated how he had gained access to a woman's privacy-protected Facebook photos.

He was demonstrating that people who use social networking sites should not trust their privacy settings.

When police arrested Grubb they told him they were acting on a complaint from a person whose Facebook photo had been accessed without a password.

Darren Burden, an executive with the paper's publisher, Fairfax, said: "Ben was reporting on something actually said and presented at that conference. It's fundamental for journalists to be able to report these events."

Though Queensland police denied arresting Grubb, he recorded his conversation with the detective who questioned him - it's hilarious, by the way, a genuine Plod classic - he was formally arrested in order for police to confiscate his iPad.

Grubb refused to hand it over voluntarily because he explained it was a tool of his trade.

A police spokeswoman later said it would "be returned as soon as possible."

Source: Sydney Morning Herald