Sydney University officials got furious when they found that students of residential colleges were operating a secret computer network for sharing pornography and pirated movies & music.

The incident occurred despite last year's "pro-rape" Facebook site shame at St Paul's College, which had compelled authorities to make severe changes to disciplinary procedures.

The network, which allowed students to download data directly from one another, was running via intranet offered by the colleges.

X-rated material was being made available through the system. In addition, movie, popular TV shows such as Gossip Girl were also made freely available.

It should be noted here that many US TV shows such as Gossip Girl have not yet aired in Australia.

When contacted, a spokesperson for Vice-Chancellor Michael Spence said, "The particular network, which was not hosted on the university network, but on a student's individual computer, has been identified and shut down."

However, the principals of St Paul's, St Andrew's, Sancta Sophia and Wesley colleges declined to comment on the issue.