Journalist arrested at IT security conference

A FAIRFAX journalist was arrested by Queensland Police yesterday after an article he wrote about vulnerabilities in Facebook's privacy controls was published on smh.com.au.

He was later released without charge but police retained custody of his iPad.

Ben Grubb, the deputy technology editor of the Herald website, was attending an IT security conference at a resort on the Gold Coast where a security expert, Christian Heinrich, demonstrated how he had gained access to the privacy-protected Facebook photos of the wife of the HackLabs director, Chris Gatford.

Mr Heinrich told Fairfax Digital he gained access to the photos to show that people who use social networking sites should not trust their privacy settings.

Grubb reported that it was well-known in the IT security community that the two security experts did not get along.

He was arrested at the AusCERT conference venue after his article about the session was published.

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

Darren Burden, the general manager for news at Fairfax Digital, said: ''Ben was a guest of AusCERT at the conference at the Gold Coast. He was at a conference, reporting on something actually said and presented at that conference. It's fundamental for journalists to be able to report these events.''

A spokeswoman for Queensland Police denied Grubb was arrested, saying he may have voluntarily gone with police for questioning. ''There was no arrest. He was interviewed briefly by police and the iPad will be returned as soon as possible,'' she said.