Preamble

It should be understood that the Department does not consider itself to be under any obligation to provide exhaustive and irrefutable proof of transgression of any of these policies in order to close an account. Hence the Department will show little tolerance for users who show any indication of abusing the privilege they have been granted.

Violation of the policies outlined below will generally result in denial of access rights for a period of time commensurate with the severity of the violation. Flagrant or repeat violators may have access denied indefinitely, be subject to University disciplinary procedures, or be prosecuted under State or Federal statutes.

Types of Accounts

The Department is presently also giving accounts to faculty of the other Idaho higher educational institutions, and occasionally grants accounts to Mathematics faculty at other institutions if they happen to be in Boise temporarily. Only under extraordinary circumstances would anyone else be granted an account on the Department computers.

  Policies

Use and Access

1. Only persons authorized by the Department are allowed to use its computers, and each account is established for the exclusive use of the person assigned to it.
2. No user is permitted to let anyone else access his or her account. A user who suspects that someone may have gained unauthorized access to his or her account must report that suspicion immediately to the system administrator.
3. No user is permitted to use his or her account to gain unauthorized access to other accounts or computers.
4. No user is permitted to use his or her account to help others to gain unauthorized access to any computer.
5. At no time and under no circumstances may these accounts be used in any way for direct commercial gain.
6. No account may be used to develop software for any of the above prohibited purposes, even if the software is not actually used on Department machines.
7. Users are expected to observe lab hours. In particular this means leaving the labs at closing times.

Behavior Toward Other Users

1. No user is permitted to use his or her account to harass other users, at this site or elsewhere. Examples of harassment include, but are not limited to, threatening or annoying e-mail messages and any form of interference with another user's authorized use of the system, via electronic, verbal, physical, or other means.

2. Users must respect the privacy of other users' accounts. In particular, no user is permitted to attempt to change or circumvent the protections set by another user.

3. Users are expected to obey all lab rules, which include:
   1. no eating or drinking in the lab,
   2. cooperating with university staff,
   3. showing consideration for others using the lab,
   4. not displaying any offensive images or language on terminals or storing such images on university computers,
   5. picking up his or her own trash,
   6. any other rules which may be posted in the lab.

Nefarious Programs

1. No user is permitted to run, nor have in his or her disk space, nor place in disk space outside of his or her own directory subtree, any program which the Department considers ``nefarious''. Nefarious programs include but are not limited to trojan horses, trap doors, viruses, password-guessing programs , or any other program intended as a device or part of a device to compromise the security of the system.

2. No user is permitted to run, nor have in his or her disk space, nor place in disk space outside of his or her own directory subtree any program which uses an excessive amount of disk space, number of inodes, number of cpu cycles, or which in any way interferes with the administration of the system. In particular, this applies to programs expressly designed to crash the system.

3. Any executable code that a user places on the system must be the image of source which is also maintained somewhere on the system. Any standalone binaries which a user wishes to place on the system must be approved individually and in writing.

Game Playing

1. Users wishing to play games on the system must restrict their activities so as to have minimal impact on the system. ``Game playing'' is defined here as development or execution of a program whose value is primarily as a diversion and is not a requirement for a departmental course. This restriction includes, but is not limited to, the following guidelines:
2. Games must not be played during prime time; this includes 8:00 am-5:00 pm on working days, and all of the last two weeks plus finals week of any semester. In addition, users must abandon any game being played outside these hours if the load is interfering with educational or research use of the system.
3. Game playing must not use up scarce resources. In particular, dialup lines may not be used for this purpose, no more than 200 KBytes of disk space may be used for games by an individual user, and no game is in any way to involve a user who is not aware of the full extent of his or her involvement.
4. Game playing must not in any way require or solicit any activity on the part of the system administrators or Department faculty. This prohibition includes but is not limited to questions mailed to ``adm'' or individual faculty on any subject, if the proximate cause for the question is related to game playing. It also includes requests for intervention by system administrators to prevent the game from falling afoul of other conditions set out in this policy.

Internet Access

1. Any user making use of the Internet (and by extension, computers at other sites), must respect the rules for remote access of the computers at these sites. Responsibility for knowing these rules rests entirely with the user.

2. Like cpu cycles or disk space, the Internet is a finite resource which can easily be overloaded by a single user. Users are responsible for determining in advance that actions they take will not put undue load on the Internet and adversely affect other users, at Boise State or elsewhere. Excessive use of the Internet in this way will result in immediate disciplinary action.

Treatment of Software and Hardware

1. Much of the software on the Department computers has been acquired under license and may not be copied onto other systems. Users must respect these licenses and not download any material without first checking with the system administrators.
2. No activity is permitted which causes unusual wear and tear on the Department terminals, printers, workstations or any other assets owned by Boise State University.
3. Users are expected to treat the Department's equipment and the rooms in which it is located with respect and to obey the admonitions posted about the rooms.