Journo was arrested, says Qld cop Queensland Police have told a press conference in Queensland that they did indeed arrest tech journalist Ben Grubb in their investigation of a Facebook vulnerability demonstrated at Australia’s AusCERT conference on Sunday. The arrest has outraged both the IT community and Australian media. The police media unit had …
Don't know all the details here, but I can see where they might have a point. Vulnerabilities are usually disclosed via *examples*, right? Using the real account of another person, presumably without their prior permission, seems entirely unnecessary. You could just create a couple of example accounts and be perfectly able to demonstrate the flaw without violating anyone else's privacy.
Over in Blighty(tm) we have similar stuff. Cops arrest people and the media have a geat time getting us to assume that the they are holding dangerous crims or terrorists or kiddie-fiddlers. Press becomes judge and jury and offers up 'danger to human race' to be pilloried.
Cops do 'questioning' thang and find nothing of interest - person(s) don't get charged with any crime and are still - in the eyes of the press - guilty as fuck.
See under 'terrorist charges', 'Bristol landlord' and others.
but no, we don't. you have to be arrested on suspicion of having committed an offence. now sure, the cops might occasionally arrest someone they don't really think did it but who they at least have enough plausible evidence to claim *might* have done it, but they do need at least that much. Or they can arrest you for something else and ask you about what they really want to know. Point is, though, they can't just arrest you, not on the suspicion of any crime, but for questioning.
I suppose it's similar to the American concept of being held as a material witness...
Indeed. They assert that attaining a picture from FaceBook without the authority to do so (either given to you explicitly or because it's shared publically) is a crime. And receiving that photograph (which Ben Grugg allegedly did - possibly the reason for the iPad search) is a crime just as receiving a stolen Car is a crime.
It's a little crazy but the law can be like that. Because it doesn't "get" the internet. Anybody who has browsed to a page containing that image may have technically done the same thing.
They should have the common sense to understand the difference. But the law itself is an ass, as they say.
They had a strong , albeit weird, suspicion that Ben had fresh #planking pictures taken at AustCERT on his Ipad. Qld Police do not take kindly to that form of expression as previously discussed here.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/05/15/planking_death/
Just wait till the merde hits le fan when they hear about teabagging XD
Yes, we absolutely do!
But we cannot underestimate the importance or exaggerate the execution of the "ethical" bit.
That is exactly where that %//(&&§ failed. There is no way you access someone's protected or assumed private data, also not for demonstration purposes, without this persons explicit consent.
Period.
This guy was driven by petty personal motives (Pictures of rival's wife, remember?), so his integrity seems to leave wanting. Which should exclude him from staring in any convention and rids him of every claim for respect.
Hey everyone,
Ethical Hacking would refer to the fact that something 'ethical' was going on here. I know when we perform an ethical hack at our office, then there is an agreement between the parties as to what they will be accessing and the way they would access it. To go outside of that agreement is frowned upon sternly.
Christian stepped over the line here, he could have teed it up earlier with another person at the conference but in this case decided to add a bit of drama in order to make his point.
While we are looking about this, the fact that Ben get arrested for receiving a photograph that is published, well lets face it Facebook is an open forum, and its hardly secure (as we have known for some time), just goes to show how far the law is behind the Internet
"Hacking is illegal no matter which way yo look at it (ok white hacking systems when a company ask you to find vulnerabilities in their systems is fine),"
So what you really mean is that hacking is NOT "illegal no matter which way yo look at it" - it just depends on how you look at it?
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