Titans player was presenting an online safety talk to schoolchildren when another device entered an open network and displayed porn on screen

This article is more than 3 years old

This article is more than 3 years old

NRL player Jarryd Hayne has been caught in an embarrassing pornography gaffe while presenting an online safety talk at a Gold Coast high school.



Hayne’s online browsing history was being shown on a screen at the school, featuring mostly sports images, when a pornographic website was displayed on the screen to the 200-plus students in attendance at Robina State High School.



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Norton Security, on whose behalf Hayne was presenting the talk, said afterwards the images had come from another device that had entered the network.



“It’s unfortunate and all I can say [is] it definitely was not Jarryd’s device,” Hayne’s co-host from Norton, Nick Savvides, said.

The demonstration was set up to highlight the dangers of joining open WiFi networks, where “middle men” could seize data and view activity on the phone while connected without the user’s knowledge.

While Hayne’s activity was being captured on a laptop and transmitted on the big screen, an unknown person joined the public network and had their activity shown, Savvides said.

“Connecting to open networks, people can see what you’re doing and in this case, inject unwanted materials.”

Hayne was shocked by the appearance of the images, which remained on the screen for a number of seconds and included lewd acts and a topless woman.



“It was [awkward],” he said. “I shut my phone straight away so that way I was logged off. Wow.”

It’s not believed Hayne was due to give any further talks at other schools.



The demo has been shown before at a number of talks elsewhere without Hayne and Savvides said such an issue had not arisen before. He also said they would be unable to ascertain exactly whose device the website had come from.

Hayne, the former Parramatta Eels player, returned to Australia earlier this year after a stint in the US playing for the San Francisco 49ers in the NFL and an unsuccessful attempt to make the Rio Olympic Games with the Fiji rugby sevens team.

