|
|
|
What is the mail.sas acceptable use policy?
(Last revised: 06/17/03 -SH+VM+CD, revision 2.5.2)
The mail.sas computer supports electronic communications for students,
faculty and staff in the School of Arts and Sciences. In order to provide
sufficient resources for the entire SAS community, we must limit resources
given to each individual. Additional support may be available from
academic departments and research facilities.
A. Security
Your computer account is for your use only. You are solely
responsible for what is done using it. If there is evidence of
unauthorized or improper use of your account, it will be temporarily
disabled. This protects your files and other users of the system. You
will be asked to contact the postmaster, show them your Penn ID, change
your password, and/or take other appropriate action. If you suspect that
someone else may be using your account, report it by contacting the
postmaster or the helpdesk immediately.
Choose a password that will be difficult to guess and keep it
a secret. Your password belongs to you alone. Don't even give
your password to a friend or to a computer system administrator.
Logout when you are finished at a terminal. If you don't,
other people can use your account, change or delete your files, and so on.
(see part H: Idle Session Logout)
No computer system is immune to forgeries or spoofs. Don't take
any irreversible action based on electronic communication alone. In
particular, don't believe everything you read on April Fools' Day.
B. Privacy
Read other people's files only if you have permission from the
owner to do so. This applies to both protected and unprotected files. On
the other hand, complete privacy cannot be guaranteed. Never store files
on any time-sharing system whose disclosure would be disastrous. System Administrators
may only view users' files under exceptional circumstances, such as the
appearance of a violation of policy, for required system maintenance, or
in response to a question or request from the user. Automatic programs
keep logs of accounts accessed and programs run, for maintenance,
security, and accounting reasons.
C. Accessing other computers
Only attempt to connect to other computers if you have reason to
believe that the owner wants you to connect. For example ssh, telnet, ftp,
login, and any other method. If you are requested to stop connecting to
certain computers, you must stop. You may not run any server program
which accepts incoming connections to MAIL.SAS. Failure to comply with
any of these rules may result in termination of your account.
All outside connections go through the Internet, and some machines
on the Internet have very strict policies. Since our university
connection can be terminated by Internet authorities if there is evidence
of abusive use of the connection, SAS is very strict about even the
appearance of abuse.
D. Misbehavior
Forged mail, attempts to use other people's accounts, attempts to
crack passwords, attempts to alter system files, and similar misbehavior
may be referred to the Office of Student Conduct. The OSC is part
of the University Judicial System, which provides notice of charges,
opportunity for settlement or hearing, judgement by University community
members, and the right to appeal, thus ensuring fundamental fairness to
all parties involved. Student records are protected by University privacy
policies.
Other misbehavior may violate the University's general policies,
the Pennsylvania Computer Crime Act of 1983, the University's policy
on Ethical Behavior with Respect to the Electronic Information
Environment or other applicable laws.
Any activity that may significantly impact the performance of the
system is prohibited, such as mass mailing.
Running non terminating background processes such as IRC robots
(bots) is prohibited.
Any activity which denies or restricts service to other users of
MAIL.SAS or any other computer is strictly forbidden. This includes
harassment by repetitive email, mail-bombs, electronic chain letters,
messaging or any other means. Harassment by computer falls under the
university's general policy. Please also see Penn's
Policy on Acceptable Use of Electronic Resources.
Severe or repeated harassment will be referred
to the Ombudsman's Office. Any concerns about this may be discussed in a
confidential manner with the Ombudsman's Office (898-8261).
E. Limits (processor time and memory)
The MAIL.SAS computer's mission is to provide electronic
communications for SAS faculty, staff, and students. It is not intended
as a software development platform, nor are there sufficient disk, memory,
and CPU resources for this type of use. To provide a reasonable level
of support for the entire SAS community, we must limit the size of
computing tasks performed on the system. Users are currently restricted
to a total of 30 CPU minutes per month. Individual processes are limited
to 5 CPU minutes and 20 MB of program memory. Email attachments are limited
to 20 Megabytes and these limits are
automatically enforced. Our experience has shown that these limits are
more than adequate for even the heaviest email and USENET news users. It
should also be known that for security concerns CGI scripts and other
executable code are not allowed on the sas.upenn.edu web server.
F. Quotas (Disk space allocated per account)
1) Home directories: Faculty and staff are allowed a maximum of 25 Megabytes of
permanent storage; Students are allowed a maximum of 20 Megabytes (Please
see Inbox Quotas for more
information). In some special cases, users may be granted an increase beyond
these limits. For special requests about disk quotas and other privileges,
contact help@sas.upenn.edu.
2) Spool space (inbox): The mail spool directory is intended only for
incoming mailbox files. Any other files found placed in this area will
be promptly deleted by the system administration. Resources permitting,
users may keep up to 15M of mail in this directory. Users exceeding this
will be given notification, and eventually mailbox files will be truncated
or archived to offline storage. This archived mailbox file is named mbox-date
(e.g. Mail/mbox-Jun-24-01) and if it is not viewed or does not have its name
changed it will, after 4 months, be deleted to eliminate wasted disk space.
3) Temporary space (/tmp): This space is for temporary files only. Files
more than a day old will be automatically deleted. For shorter periods
of time, users may use up to 20 MB in /tmp.
G. Account Deletion
Accounts of graduating seniors and other students leaving the
university (including leave of absence) will be deleted in the October
following their graduation or departure. The University offers alumni an email forwarding service which can be accessed at the Penn Alumni web page. Faculty no longer working at
Penn will have their accounts deleted 90 days after their last day of
work. Staff accounts will be deleted 10 days after their last day.
Special circumstances may warrant immediate account closure.
H. Idle Session Logout
Idle login sessions may be automatically terminated after 40
minutes for faculty and staff and 20 minutes for students.
All idle logins will be terminated after 24 hours of continuous
connection. Leaving terminals idle is wasteful of system
resources, and a potential security
problem.
I. File Backup and Retrieval
System and user files are backed up on a daily basis.
These daily backups are kept for 2 weeks. An additional archival backup to
be saved for a year is made at the middle of the fall semester before the
accounts of graduating seniors and other students leaving the university
are deleted from the system. This archive is kept for one year and then
deleted.
File retrieval service is available for occasional accidental
deletions of critical files. Retrieving data is time and labor intensive,
so these services are limited, and subject to the judgement of system
administration personnel.
J. Automated Enforcement and Other Policies
Some of the stated policies and limits are automatically enforced,
and others manually at the discretion of the administrative personnel.
Even if the automatic enforcement programs are circumvented, the policies
still apply.
The University's general
policies apply to computers, such as the policy on commercial use of
facilities, guidelines on open expression, and the code of academic
integrity.
K. Copying of Computer Software
The University of Pennsylvania does not condone or tolerate the
unauthorized copying or use of licensed computer software by staff,
faculty, or students. Those who violate this policy may be subject to
discipline through standard University procedures as well as civil suit,
criminal charges, including possible penalties and fines. Please see
Penn's Policy on Unauthorized Copying of Copyrighted Software.
L. Shared Resources
MAIL.SAS and its network connections are shared resources. Using
MAIL.SAS gives us computational abilities, world-wide communication, and
much more. However, it is a shared system which depends on the honesty
of its users. Each user is involved in preserving and protecting the
system by observing the rules outlined in this document and by being
considerate of others.
Spring 2001
School of Arts & Sciences Computing
University of Pennsylvania.
Send comments about this policy to:
policy@sas.upenn.edu.
Make a New Search
Last modified: Tuesday, 17-Jun-2003 10:39:34 EDT
|
|
