University of California at Berkeley Department of Electrical Engineering & Computer Sciences Instructional Support Group /share/b/pub/etiquette.help /share/b/pub/Rules-of-Conduct Aug 13, 2014 Rules of Conduct on EECS Instructional Computers ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ CONTENTS Rules of Conduct Disciplinary Procedures Using Information Servers "Informed Consent" Required for Displaying Student Identities What your account is for Games Disk Usage Computer Lab Etiquette Background Jobs Printer Usage Using Email Copyright Law Respect (do unto others...) Rules of Conduct ---------------- A short description of the Rules of Conduct are printed on your initial account form. You are required to follow these rules, and your use of the account is your legal agreement to do so. This is like the agree- ment on shrink-wrapped software, which says "If you open this you are accepting and are bound by the terms of the license." These are those Rules of Conduct: "1) I will not use the computers to transmit or display any text, images or sounds that are defamatory or obscene or that threaten other users with harm. I am bound by the laws and University poli- cies that prohibit defamation, harassment, exploitation and intimidation in all forms. [These policy statements are available from the Chancellor's Office and the Student Conduct Office.] "2) I will not use a false identity in email or other communications via computer. "3) I will not attempt or participate in unauthorized entry into another user's account or into another system. I will not view another person's computer files without permission or plagiarize from their computer files. "4) I will not share the use of my account or give my password to anyone else. "5) I will not copy or distribute any available software without permission from the author or from the sys admins. Improper use of copyrighted material is illegal and I know that I could be prosecuted for it. "6) I will use this account for EECS coursework only. I will not run any network servers, nor will I run Xtrek or other network- based games. I will not use screen locks or disable a computer in any other way. "7) I will not bring food or drinks into the labs." The following paragraphs expand upon the basic account policies for users on Instructional computers. Unless otherwise noted, these policies apply to any and all of the Instructional machines. Any class-specific policies imposed by instructors exist in addition to those listed here. Failure to adhere to these policies may result in the termination of your account and disciplinary actions from the university. If you have any questions, please mail them to inst@eecs.berkeley.edu. Disciplinary Procedures ----------------------- The systems management staff respects your privacy. The staff will deliberately look at the files in your account only if (1) there is evidence of a breach in security or conduct related to your account, or (2) if you or an instructor request it. However, please be aware that normal management functions, such as data archiving, may inadvertently expose the contents of some files to trusted management staff. Trusted staff will look into the contents of any files or directories that are involved in resolving an accusation of wrong-doing. We will share that information with the Office of Student Conduct, if it is necessary to document a case. These are some examples of what we consider "evidence of a breach in security or conduct related to your account": 1. We see that the combined disk usage of all of your files or of your email spool file exceeds the amount normally used by students in your classes; 2. We see collections of files owned by you that, because of their size, file types or names, appear to have been obtained illegally; 3. We notice login activity in your account that suggests that the account has been "broken into" by an intruder; 4. We notice login activity in your account that suggests that you are sharing the account with other people; 5. We receive a credible complaint that implicates you in the abuse of University or EECS Computer Usage Rules; 6. We observe you abusing the lab facilities (eating food, playing computer games, etc); Our response to these situations will vary with the degree of proof and the severity of the possible offense: 1. We will always prefer to contact the accused individual, by email or telephone, to arrange a time to meet and discuss the situation. 2. If the accused does not respond after a reasonable time (about 24 hours, excluding weekends and vacations), we often will disable access to the person's EECS Instructional computer account and post a special message that appears on the screen during any attempt to login. The message explains that the accused should contact the staff as soon as possible to discuss the situation. Usually, the account is turned back on again once that dialogue has started. 3. If there is an ongoing problem that cannot be left uncorrected (excessive disk usage, an account break-in, a runaway program, etc), we may disable your account, rename or remove some of your files with short warning. We will always try to back up a file before we delete it, and we will notify you as described above. 4. After meeting with the accused to review the evidence, the EECS staff may close the case or forward it to the office of Student Conduct for further review or disciplinary action. Using Information Servers ------------------------- Users who present information for display through information servers that are run on University computers must adhere to accepted rules of behavior: the information must contain no obscenities and no offensive remarks of a racial or sexual nature. The University is bound by the laws and policies that protect its members from insult and harassment and can not permit University facilities (ie the local servers) to be used for such purposes. Email, news postings, 'talk' messages and other communications via computer must not contain obscenities or offensive remarks of a racial or sexual nature. You may not direct unsolicited messages to people if these messages may be interpreted as harassment in any way. Offenses of these kinds are very serious. We will usually present such a case to the Office of Student Conduct, and possibly to the police as well. In addition, these servers must not be used to advertise commercial products or services, unless a specific exception is documented in current University rules. (USENET provides the biz.* newsgroups for commercial activity, and it is permissible to read and post articles to those newsgroups. Home pages may reference commercial sites that support the activities of the department without profit to the owner of the home page.) Specifically, these rules apply to the words, sounds and images displayed via "finger", "ftp", "talk", "irc" email, USENET, the WWW and any other information services. The rules also apply to information distributed from home computers when connecting to the Internet using the University home-IP facilities. Please see these files for related information: /share/b/pub/news.help - about posting to USENET network news /share/b/pub/homepage.help - about posting to USENET network news "Informed Consent" Required for Displaying Student Identities ------------------------------------------------------------- Information that you display publically via University computers may not include the names of a student without an "informed consent" from the student. Restricting access to WEB pages, say to the EECS or BERKELEY.EDU domains, is not sufficient: informed consent is still required. This is a requirement by federal law. An example of "informed consent" is: "I, (student name), consent to have my name posted on (webpage title & url), a paper copy template of which is attached to this consent form. My name may be posted on this webpage from (date) to (date). I understand that my consent to have my name posted on this webpage is not a condition of my participation in (name of the class), nor will it be used as a basis for grading my performance therein." Please refer to the Policy Analysts at the Office of the Registrar, 127 Sproul Hall, for further clarification about the requirement for "informed consent". The California Information Practices Act requires that state agencies such as UCB disclose any breach of security that might have released personal information including the "name in combination with any of: social security number, driver's license number, or financial account or credit card number in combination with any password that would permit access to the individual's account". UCB standards for protected data are specified under https://security.berkeley.edu/content/draft-data-classification-standard . What your account is for ------------------------ Your EECS Instructional account is provided for you to complete EECS course assignments. There is no fee for you to use it, but you must not use it for non-EECS tasks, such as assignments for other departments or for personal matters. Several student organizations have accounts for organization work. Abuse of these accounts will result in the loss of the account privilege. Games ----- Game playing is not allowed on the Instructional computers. Games typically waste network, disk and cpu resources, and often cause excessive wear to the mice and keyboards. Disk Usage ---------- Disk quotas are imposed to prevent individual users from filling up the disk and making it impossible for other users to get any work done. This can occur either through accident, laziness, or malice. We may delete the files of users who consume excessive amounts of temporary disk space and ignore warnings to clean up. Please read /share/b/pub/disk.quotas for more information. Computer Lab Etiquette ----------------------- DO NOT RUN A SCREEN LOCK program or disable a workstation in any other way. We will disable your account if you show such disregard for others, especially if we receive complains from others when the labs are crowded. Locking a terminal is a very selfish thing to do and makes other users very angry at you! (Denying access to an idle machine by "reserving" it for friends is also not allowed, unless that person has only stepped out of the lab for a very brief break.) Also, any user logged in on the console can be logged out if their machine has been left unattended for 30 minutes. Basically, any user should be free to visit the restroom, to retrieve a printout, or to hold a brief discussion with a project partner or the lab staff. DO NOT BRING FOOD or DRINKS into the labs. Crumbs and spills require annoying and expensive cleanups at best; at worst they can ruin a computer. We reserve the right to disable a user's account without warning if we observe the user eating or drinking in a lab. Writing to the terminals of other users, trying to steal their passwords, snooping around in their files and other unsavory acts will be treated as abuse of account. Background Jobs --------------- Please don't leaving jobs running after you log out; this consumes computer resources and is not necessary for most coursework. We may kill such background jobs without warning. If you have a real need, please contact us about it. Printer Usage ------------- There are several printers located in the labs. These are provided for printouts required for EECS COURSES ONLY - do not use them for other classes or for personal use. Each student is expected to limit paper usage to about 25 pages per week. Users are expected to collect their output promptly and to keep the printer area clean of waste paper. Using Email ----------- No Email Forgery: Sending mail as another user (either real or imagined) is not permitted. No Mass Mailings: It is inappropriate to send a message to many people that you do not know, such as to everyone on a large computer, the entire campus, etc. Please see http://socrates.berkeley.edu:7015/policy/mass.ml.htm for information about the UCB campus policy that defines what is appropriate to send mass mailings. No Large Mail Spool Files: Please read your mail often and delete old messages. If your mail spool file (found in /usr/spool/mail/$USER or /usr/mail/$USER or /var/mail/$USER) exceeds 1MB in size, we may reduce it for you, deleting (and not saving) the older messages. Copyright Law ------------- From the UC Berkeley IST Office of Customer Affairs (Dec 4, 1997): The Nov 24 issue of Synfax Weekly Report (synfax@aol.com) reported that on "November 14, 1997 Congress passed a bill (the "No Electronic Theft Act") making it a criminal offense to willfully infringe a copyright by *sharing* as well as selling pirated software with a retail value of $1,000 or more. Offenders will be subject to up to five years in prison, and a $250,000 fine. If President Clinton signs the Act--as expected--it will be another aspect of cyberspace law our students urgently need to know." Respect (do unto others...) --------------------------- As you use the computers and labs, please remember that hundreds of other students are sharing the facilities. Also, a small staff group maintains the labs, and they are not here to teach social etiquette or pick up garbage. Most of our users already show consideration for this fact, and we appreciate that. Many of these rules are stated for the few people who would think to violate them. Courtesy and common sense are the best rules to follow! EECS Instructional & Eletronics Support 377 & 386 Cory, 333 Soda inst@eecs.berkeley.edu esg@eecs.berkeley.edu