EC: Gatford. Sorry. About the article. Well not so much about the article but more to the point about what's alleged in the article. Ok? We've received some information about it all up and we want to ask you some questions about it but under our law we are not allowed to ask you these questions we want to ask without giving you your cautions and your rights. Do you understand that? BG: Yes [...] are you charging me or? EC: No. You're not under arrest at the moment ok? We're not.. Ben: At the moment? EC: Well. Sorry. That was a, you're not under arrest. And I don't expect to place you under arrest.

BG: So what do you want to ask me? EC: All right. BG: Sorry. What are my rights? EC: I'll give you the rights straight up just so that we're perfectly clear. The first one is that you do have the right to remain silent. That means that you do not have to say anything, answer any questions or give any statements unless you wish to do so. We are recording our conversation hear just as you are recording our conversation and that may later be used in evidence in court if we ever get that far. Do you understand that? BG: Yeah.

EC: The second right is that you also Female officer: Oh [The recording gets interrupted because the female officer's iPhone, which was recording the conversation, gets a call] Female officer: Will that stop the recording? EC: I hope not ...

BG: You might want to start it again. EC: Want to start it again [he looks to female police officer]? BG: Maybe put it in airport mode? [...] That'll turn the Wi-Fi off but [BG gives advice about how to prevent further calls] EC: So the time per my phone is 4.21pm and it's Tuesday the 17th 2011. Just so that the recording is accurate we've previously spoken to you already. Would you agree with that Ben? BG: Yes.

EC: I've given you my names and details but I'll give it to you again for the purposes of the recording. My name is Errol Coultis I'm detective senior constable of the Queensland police service. I'm a member of the fraud and corporate crime investigation group. My registration is 11799 [...] Ben, could you state your name please? BG: Ben Grubb and I'm at the Sydney Morning Herald. EC: Sydney Morning Herald? Now just before we were interrupted in the previous recording by a phone call I just stated that we wanted to talk to you in relation to a complaint we received ok? From Chris Gatford and it relates to an alleged exploitation of [...] his wife's Facebook account and some related matters to that. As I stated before, I talked to you about this issue which we have to deal with. I obviously cautioned you and you wanted me to tell you your rights. And I explained to you and I will explain to you again that you do have the right to remain silent. Ok? That means that you do not have to say anything, you don't have to answer any questions or make any statements unless you wish to do so. Anything you do so will hopefully typically be recorded, it may later be used as evidence in court. Do you understand that for me? BG: Yes. EC: The second warning that you have is that you have the right to telephone and speak to a friend or a relative.

BG: Or a lawyer? EC: I'll get to that. That's the second part. You have the right to telephone to speak to a friend or a relative to explain where you are and arrange or attempt to arrange to have a friend or a relative present during the questioning. And it is questioning. There's not getting around that. If you do wish to speak to or telephone a friend or a relative or arrange to have a friend or a relative present during this questioning here today we can delay our questioning for a reasonable time for that purpose. Do you understand that warning? BG: Yep. EC: You also have the right to telephone and speak to a lawyer of your choice and arrange or attempt to arrange to have a lawyer present during questioning. Ok? You also have the right, we will also suspend our questioning for a reasonable time so that you can arrange to speak to or have a lawyer present here with us here while we are questioning you. Do you understand that warning? BG: Yes.

ED: Is there anyone you would like to speak to or telephone before we start? BG: Firstly I guess am I here, I'm not in handcuffs or anything at the moment. EC: No. BG: At this stage. Do I even have to be here or is this me being polite? EC: No. You're not under arrest and you are free to leave at anytime unless you are arrested. So if you want to walk out of the room right now then that is up to you. That is your choice and we're certainly not going to physically prevent you from doing that. But we've received a complaint in relation to the alleged compromise of a Facebook account. We just wanted to ask you some questions about what you might know about it.

[...] EC: Can I ask how old you are? BG: I'm 20 years of age. EC: 20. That's really good. And are you a person of Aboriginal or Torres Strait islander heritage at all?? BG: Does it really matter?

EC: No. Well it doesn't really matter but it's something that we're required to ask. BG: Ok. EC: And are you a foreign national? BG: I'm Australian. EC: Australian. You don't hold citizenship in any other country?

BG: Citizen of Australia. Hobart. EC: And are you under the influence of a drug or alcohol at present? BG: No. Maybe last night. EC: Maybe last night? BG: Alcohol only.

EC: Maybe you weren't the only one. But not right now? BG: No. EC: No. Ok. That's all the legal stuff that I have to ask you. As I said, that stuff applies from now until we finish talking to you today. Now Chris Gatford has contacted myself and Michelle yesterday afternoon and he's made a complaint today. Ok? His complaint basically is that his wife's Facebook account has been unlawfully accessed without either his or her permission. His MySpace account has been unlawfully accessed without his permission. And his Flickr account has been accessed without his permission. He has nominated a person by the name of Christian Heinrich who has done this. And he has done this and brought it into Queensland and displayed it for other people to view at a conference. Do you know anything about this matter at all? BG: Yes, I do. EC: Are you prepared to talk to us about that?

BG: Um. What do you want to know? EC: Can you tell me what you know about it? BG: Um I know that a man by [the name of] Christian - what's his last name? EC: Heinrich. BG: Heinrich or something like that ... presented on Sunday afternoon around 1.30 or so. I was not present at that presentation. [...] I arrived at a talk after his talk and I had seen on Twitter before [the talk] that he was revealing some vulnerabilities in MySpace, Facebook and Flickr and so I caught up with him after he presented at this event and I spoke to him for about an hour or so about what he had just shown to everyone else. And so we went through in a cafe in the foyer area of the Royal Pines Resort, through the slides that he presented to everyone else just like he was presenting to everyone else.

[...] So during that time he showed me how he had found some vulnerabilities in Facebook and these aren't in a technical sense, they've kind of been around for a while but I think that the way that he demonstrated was just a bit of a good shock for a few people in the industry at least. So what he showed that he had done was simply [on Facebook] logged in as himself, typed in whatever the name Chris Gatford's wife is, and then seen her page. Obviously, to be a friend of her, she had her privacy settings quite high. So he thought that he would exploit this vulnerability that he had already known about. [BG describes his understanding of how Heinrich accessed a photo]. So it's more the way that he was demonstrating kind of in his words how he had been able to guess the URLs of photos that were on the servers that Facebook uses to distribute photos. EC: Ok BG: Mouthful.

EC: All right. And how did he show this to you? Ben: He showed me in front of his laptop. [...] EC: Yep. Ok. And how can you access those, pardon my lack of technology, how do you access those photos if they are allegedly private behind a password without requiring a password...? BG: So how do you access the photos normally if you were to friend her?

EC: No, I understand that much. If you're a friend of hers you can view those photos if she allows that, if she allows that process. Because that is a setting of Facebook, as I understand it. So is he a friend of her on Facebook? Do you know? BG: He is not a friend of her? EC: So without being a friend you can view those photos if you. BG: Use the method, using the method that he showed everyone, which was the whole point of his talk, was how he gained access to the photos. [...] So instead of just getting the [URL] link like already done for him, he just guesses the link with this way of going from 0 to 200,000 within a couple of days.

EC: So if you send a link. BG: If you were a friend? EC: No sorry. I was going to say, you're, if you're Chris Gatford's wife and you sent a link off to your own photographs to somebody, you'll be able to access that even if you're not a friend on Facebook. Is that correct? BG:Yes EC: So basically he's bypassed any decision of hers to actually provide that link to the photograph.

BG: Um. He has guessed the URL of. I don't want to - I know I can be put in a hole there. So he has guessed the URL of - it's not an easy in a nutshell answer. He's guessed the URL of a what her photos would be. EC: Ok. And that's taken, that's the seven day process there? BG: That's the seven day process. [...] EC: OK. But is the fact that the accounts are requiring a log-on and a password and that there are privacy settings within these individual websites to secure the photographs that are being placed or the content - it's not the photographs I suspect. Is that not an attempt to secure that property? Those particular items?

BG: I don't need to answer that one. That's not my responsibility. EC: No. Ok. All right. You don't think that that is the case? BG: That's your job to figure out. EC: Sure, ok, no problems. Now in relation to your article there is a photograph on the website that appears to be of Chris Gatford. BG: Yes, there is a picture of Chris Gatford on the website, which was in public domain as Christian likes to describe it, and we contact our lawyers before we publish any articles that are contentious like this. And we've been informed that we are allowed to use that image.

EC: OK. And where is that image obtained from. BG: That image was obtained from Christian. EC: OK BG: And Christian had obtained it through the public ... EC: Process?

BG: Through the process that he described, he had obtained that image. [...] EC: And how did the Sydney Morning Herald come to be in possession of that photo? BG: Christian gave it to us. He also gave it to in front of, he also presented it in front of 30 people publicly. So I could've taken a picture of the wall and same type of thing. So yeah that's how we came in possession of it. EC: All right. Did he give that photo to you? BG: Uh yes he did.

EC: He did? Do you still have a copy of that photo? BG: Yes but I don't want to hand it over, it's on the web. You can get it [there]. EC: Sure. Female officer: How did he hand it to you? BG: So I said hey you did a present[ation], these aren't exactly my words, can you give me the photo that you've presented to go with this article and he said ok. It wasn't as simple as that but you know.

Female officer: I guess what I'm getting at is was it emailed, was it given to you as an actual file on a USB or was it given to you on a CD? BG: So I guess I'm only prepared to say that what is in the article. My public information. Because we as journalists kind of keep our sources. It's really trivial how I kind of got it I think because he presented as a slideshow. If he's breaking the law. I don't think he is. I would like to retract that comment because I don't know whether that is true or not, I'm sure you'll find out but I think that that point is true and I don't want to answer it at this stage. EC: So if I understand correctly you have already contacted lawyers in relation to this manner? BG: Yes. We contact lawyers before we publish any contentious articles. EC: And you've sought legal advice as to whether it is lawful for you to publish that image?

BG: So that was one of the major points that I asked them. We asked them is this copy - the text of the article ok and can we use an image that was provided in the slideshow given on this topic and they said, well, obviously we've published the article so. EC: So the best to your knowledge on the advice you've received is that it is lawful of you to be in possession of that item and to have also have published it. BG: I don't want to comment on that. I will let the lawyers talk. [...] EC: All right. Did you ever seek any permission from Chris Gatford to be in possession of that photo

BG: No. EC: Did you know whether Christian Heinrich had ever sought any permission to be in possession of... BG: You'll read in the article that, in my words, it's “understood” that Christian Heinrich never sought permission to feature, or something along those lines, feature Chris Gatford's, the pictures of him on her Facebook. So it's my understanding that Chris Gatford would, and from his reaction to me, um, yeah that seems the case. [...] You're better off asking Christian these questions, I mean I've got his mobile number if you want. I seem to be the informant here rather than, you should be contacting Christian if you want to go straight to the horse's mouth? EC: Yeah ok but unfortunately we can't deal with Christian right now for various reasons. BG: He went on a plane?

EC: Which we won't talk about because he is not here. It's not fair to him. He has not had a chance to speak for himself basically. So we can't talk about him just now. [...] EC: Do you still, I asked you before I think, do you still have a possession of that image that he passed to you? BG: Yes. EC: On a device or something that's.

BG: It's in the cloud. EC: All right. BG: Or on the Sydney Morning Herald website. EC: I guess I'm asking more specifically: do you personally have a copy of that file on any electronic device you own or can access? BG: Yes.

[...] EC: I guess the comment I might make is do you consider this as something along the lines of well if I decided to hit a glass around with a stick and break it to show a glass company that their glass isn't very secure do you think that is still legal? BG: That is not a question for me, that is a question for Christian. EC: OK [...]

EC: I guess one more thing that we're going to ask you and I think I already know the answer to it but we believe Christian has committed an offence here, in fact a number of offences here in Queensland and we will be investigating that matter further. Would you be prepared to make a statement about what he may or may not have done here in Queensland? BG: Um. I'll have to contact my lawyers. But what am I making now? EC: We are simply asking you about the complaint we received. Right now in relation to you. The statement would be in relation to him. Ok? I understand you want to seek legal advice, that's completely your right to do so. But obviously if you provide us a written statement that we might be able to use in court later down the track then that would form a very significant part of our investigations. BG: I would like to seek legal advice on that. [...]

Female officer: Did you record your conversation with Christian? BG: 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. EC: 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?

EC: We're going to have a discussion at the moment. We would ask that you wait around a few moments and we'll talk to you about matters that are not related to the complaint. So those won't be recorded but they will be recorded by us but we will conclude the interview and start talking about those matters. I guess are you happy with the way you have been treated? BG: Taking me away from the conference.... EC: Have we dealt with you unfairly in anyway today? BG: No. EC: Have we mistreated you in anyway?

BG: No. EC: HAve we threatened you in anyway today?? BG: No. EC: Have I promised you anything? BG: No.

EC: Have I offered you any sort of inducement to attend here today and speak to us? BG: No. Phone call, that's about it. EC: That's a legal right. Ok. Do you have any complaints at all you wish to make about today? BG: No. EC: All right, if there's nothing more you wish to say I'll terminate the interview now and the time as per my phone is 4.47pm.

BG: And can I keep recording? EC: Certainly, yeah. Ok, well apart from that interview what we're going to have to do, I'm afraid Ben, is we're going to be taking possession of your iPad. We're going to be seizing it under legislation here in Queensland. BG: And what legislation is that? EC: Ok. We're governed by the police powers and responsibilities act. And we have a power to seize property that we believe may contain evidence of a commission of an offence. Ok? BG: OK. Now I work and my iPad is my working device. I'm a journalist. I have rights to keep my sources close. What legislative, what legislation are you prepared to take my iPad away from me under and do I have to give you the password?

EC: OK. The legislation is the police powers and responsibilities act. And if you wish we can tell you the exact section or sub-section but we have a power generally under the police powers and responsibilities act to seize evidence that we believe, we reasonably believe contains evidence of a commission of an offence. And we reasonably believe that on your iPad is recorded evidence of a commission of an offence and therefore we are going to seize your iPad to examine forensically. BG: I need to go back to work tomorrow and this is my iPad. I don't want to do that. EC: Ok. Well. I am now going to tell you that you are now under arrest. OK? In relation to receiving unlawfully obtained property. Ok? And we are now seizing your iPad. So if you could please hand your iPad over to us. BG: Now before I do that, lawyers all of that, I would like to seek legal advice before you do what you say you are doing. Because I feel that I am now being unfairly treated. EC: Now I will tell you I have placed you under arrest. You are physically under arrest now. You are not free to leave now. I will allow you to make a phone call however before you do that I will ask you to put the iPad on the desk and not touch it and we will not touch it while you make a phone call but we are going to remain present here. OK?

BG: Yep. EC: I expect the lawyers will want to speak to us. Break in recording while BG made contact with his employer and lawyers. Lawyers and employer held phone conversation with police. JS: My name is Jon Strohfeldt. I am Detective Acting Inspector at the fraud and corporate crime group and as I say and I stopped the conversation so you could turn your recording device on is that correct? BG: yep.

JS: Now thank you for your cooperation. Now what we are going to do is we will take your, is it an iPad ,which I assume you've been given a receipt for? BG: Is it OK for you to put it in something [a little secure]? JS: It will be. An officer is coming down from Brisbane who is actually trained like these officers are to handle these exhibits. It will be taken back and lodged at our central exhibits facility. It will then be imaged from there. BG: OK. Now there was a discussion. EC: I haven't had a chance to tell you this [to JS] but his law firm which is Johnson Winter and Slattery has asked that we don't conduct an examination until 24 hours at a minimum because they want to fully consider the matter before...

JS: Well.. EC: I understand we don't have to wait for their permission or anything like that but I thought given the consideration and how helpful everyone had been in relation to this matter that we can wait at least 24 hours before... as per their request JS: We can discuss that further tomorrow and Ben to be quite honest that decision may be made at a higher level than our department tomorrow morning. BG: So I need to just tell my law firm that you're taking a different direction. JS: If the direction is taken we've got your phone number and we will contact you. Ok??

BG: As I think you'll probably understand I'm a journalist and I write about maybe even you and I talk with other people and this is just hypothetical, I talk with people and I have sources and I write notes... JS: And you think it will be taken off the computer? BG: because you said ... JS: It will be treated in the confidential, highly confidential manner and only the information pertaining to this investigation will be retained by our organisation. I understand where you're coming from. BG: When you talk about imaging you're making a complete copy.

JS: I understand that but that's part of the process. BG: So it's not just pertaining to... JS: no but the only information that would be retained for evidentiary purposes would be that. BG: So how do you know where it is on the iPad? JS: well listen I'm not the...technical people.

BG: So the forensics will speak? JS: The forensics that is their job. Now have you got any further questions for any of us here? [...] EC: So here is your property receipt Ben. As you can see it's got your name and details along with the property that has been seized. BG: And in terms of legalities i didn't want to sign until...

JS: I know. I overheard that discussion with the other officers before. EC: That's your right. You don't have to. So this [the iPad] will be secured. [...]. BG: So what happens from now on? I go away and take this [the receipt for iPad]? JS: You're free.

EC: You are no longer under arrest Ben. I am now un-arresting you and the time is ... JS: By my watch 5.56pm EC: It's a power police officers have to arrest you and un-arrest you and we'll leave it at that. You are now free to go. BG: My iPad remains with you and tomorrow morning you're going to contact me if you go in a different direction than what the lawyers requested in terms of my iPad and doing a copy of that. You will call me before hand? JS: We will keep you informed, yes.I give you that undertaking. OK?

[I ask to get all their names] BG: So I can enjoy dinner? JS: Yes you can. Loading BG: So I can join your table...

JS: Well I don't think we'll be at dinner tonight we've got some work to do so you go and enjoy your dinner and again thanks for your cooperation.