Code of Conduct for the Use of the Department of Computer Engineering Facilities

Persons who violate this code may face one or more of the following actions: loss of facilities privileges, termination from program of study, suspension from the Institute, and legal action by the Institute or other affected parties. Evidence of unsuccessful attempts to violate the code will be dealt with as if they were actual violations.

• RIT Academic Honesty Policy
• RIT Code of Conduct for Compuer and Network Use
  

Examples of misuse of facilities include (but are not limited to):

• Giving or attempting to ascertain the password for a computer accounts that is not the user's account.

• Using, accessing, altering, or gaining entry to information held in a computer account owned by another user without explicit permission from that user.

• Deliberately preventing others from using equipment or services without acceptable cause.

• Violating any copyright or licensing agreements.

• Using any CE equipment or service to harass, stalk, or annoy others.

• Displaying any material that may be considered offensive.

• Using any CE equipment or service to commit fraudulent representation, falsify information, or commit acts of criminality or academic dishonesty.

• Performing any act, which will compromise the security or integrity of any CE facility or any computer.

The faculty of the Department of Computer Engineering (CE) in the Kate Gleason College of Computer Engineering at RIT has adopted the following code of conduct for the use of CE facilities. Providing open, accessible facilities is a primary goal of Computer Engineering. Such an environment supports both formal course work and individual experimentation and innovation. The success of this policy, however, presumes a professional, ethical attitude on the part of all users. The purpose of this code of conduct is to explain some of CE’s policies relating to the use of CE facilities. Persons who violate this code may face one or more of the following actions: loss of facilities privileges, termination from program of study, suspension from the Institute, and legal action by the Institute or other affected parties. If you have any questions about this document, or whether an activity or use of CE facilities you are contemplating is permissible, ask a CE faculty member. Within this document, the term facilities, refers to any and all hardware (computer systems, peripheral devices, modems, dialup lines, communication devices, network hardware, etc.), software (operating systems, language processors, etc.), information, and physical space provided by CE to support course work and research. A user is any person who makes use of (in any way, shape, or form) a CE facility or service; an owner is a user to whom an account or a CE service has been assigned by Computer Engineering. CE facilities are intended for use by students enrolled in CE courses. When time and resources permit, non-course-related activities are allowed, subject to the control of the Computer Engineering Lab Manager. The nature of your access to CE facilities and the privileges accompanying that access are determined by your relationship to CE (e.g., major, non-major, undergraduate student, graduate student, faculty, staff, etc.) It is your responsibility to find out about particular conditions of use for any CE equipment or service and to obtain proper authorization in advance of any use. In some cases, authorization may be as simple as receiving the password to an account; in other cases, it may require first determining the owner of a particular piece of equipment or service and then obtaining the owner's permission to use it. Using or attempting to use equipment or services without appropriate authorization is not acceptable, and is considered to be misuse of facilities. (As examples, permission to use a scanner for course related work is allowed; permission to use a scanner to duplicate materials that are protected copyright is not permitted.) Note that any project assigned as part of a course is considered to be ``acceptable use'' of CE facilities. Examples of misuse of facilities include (but are not limited to):

• Giving the password for a computer account to anyone other than the owner of that account, or in any way allowing another person to masquerade as the owner of the account. An exception to this is an account that has been given to a group of people (e.g., a programming team in an CE programming course) specifically for use by all members of the group.

• Using, accessing, altering, or gaining entry to information held in a computer account owned by another user without explicit permission from that user. Such permission must be granted by the owner of the account, and may not be passed on by a third party. An exception to this is any service to which access has been granted to the user community (or a subset thereof) in general by the owner of the service (e.g., access to a file in a computer account may be granted through the use of general read permission given by the owner of the file; this implies that all users are granted permission to read the file.)

• Using, accessing, altering, or exercising privileges or resources not associated with an account without the explicit permission of CE's Lab Manager or System Administrator. Such permission must be granted to the owner of the account personally, and may not be passed on by a third party.

• Using a computer account for purposes other than those for which CE was created (e.g., using an account created for a course grader to develop, store, or distribute software which does not pertain to grading of course assignments).

• Distributing information which was not intended for distribution by CEs owner (e.g., passwords, computer programs or parts thereof, copyrighted material, telephone number lists, etc.).

• Deliberately preventing others from using equipment or services without acceptable cause, unreasonably slowing down or delaying access to equipment or services by others, or deliberately wasting resources (e.g., “using unreasonable amounts of processor time or network bandwidth, printing blank pages, using excessive amounts of disk space, sending ``chain letters'', etc.)

• Maintaining, installing or operating software, which distributes or provides system resources to other users or to the computer operating system (e.g., a bulletin-board system, software distribution mechanism, or networking software) without the prior written permission of the Lab Manager or System Administrators. This applies whether or not such activity is for non-profit, and whether it is on or through (e.g., via dialup lines) CE facilities; in particular, the use of CE facilities as a gateway to a machine you own or operate is prohibited.

• Avoiding any mechanism installed for the purpose of accounting for resource usage, monitoring resource consumption, or controlling access to facilities or services.

• Violating any copyright or licensing agreement(s) regarding software and/or documentation. This includes (but is not limited to) redistribution of system software (source or binary form) or documentation, and commercial use of the system.

• Using any CE equipment or service to harass, stalk, or annoy others. This includes but is not limited to the sending of anonymous electronic messages (via electronic mail or otherwise), monitoring of other users' activities, and displaying of questionable textual or graphical information.

• Using any CE equipment or service to harass, stalk, or annoy others. This includes but is not limited to the sending of anonymous electronic messages (via electronic mail or otherwise), monitoring of other users' activities, and displaying of questionable textual or graphical information.

• Using any CE equipment or service to commit fraudulent representation, falsify information, or commit acts of criminality or academic dishonesty.

• Performing any act, which will compromise the security or integrity of any CE facility or any computer account on a CE computer, or taking advantage of security lapses on the part of other users of CE facilities.

As a member of the CE computing community, you are expected to use the facilities with care, and must abide by any rules and regulations pertaining to their use.

The computer systems operated by CE are intended primarily for academic-related computing needs. The support of recreational computer programs (e.g., games) is not a primary mission of CE and is generally discouraged. Anyone who is not performing course work may be asked to allow others to use the facilities.

Facilities

CE also provides access to a variety of electronic communications services as a service to CEs users. These services include electronic mail (both local mail and mail to off-campus locations), the USENET distributed information system, gopher, and the World Wide Web (WWW). Access to these facilities is a privilege, which must be used with intelligence and discretion. Mail messages to off-campus locations should be short and to the point. Submissions to USENET are potentially accessible anywhere in the world. Information provided via WWW pages must be in accordance with these standards. In addition, since the WWW services use CE equipment and facilities, the pages held by these systems reflect on the Institute and Department. As such, WWW page contents (and information accessible on RIT systems via these pages) must adhere to the highest standards of propriety and taste. Users who make use of these services in an irresponsible manner or who engage in libel, inflammatory postings, or illegal activities, will at the minimum lose these privileges. All users of the CE facilities at RIT are bound by the terms of the licenses and other agreements CE and RIT have entered into. Many of these agreements restrict the ways in which the facilities, both hardware and software, can be used. Failure to observe these restrictions may result in legal action against you or RIT. It is CE's policy to apply the following restrictions to all CE computer systems and services:

• Use of CE's systems for any profit-making venture (such as the development of marketable software) is prohibited.

• Development of any proprietary product or any product to which any third party has preferential rights is prohibited.

• Use of CE's systems for or by any third party (i.e., someone other than an RIT employee or student) is prohibited.

Certain CE facilities or services may have additional restrictions on their use; prior to gaining access to them, you will be informed of these restrictions.

Computer Engineering uses a variety of techniques to check compliance with this code of conduct. Evidence of unsuccessful attempts to violate the code will be dealt with as if they were actual violations. Similarly, programs, files, or other objects that appear designed to compromise this code may be considered proof of intent to commit a violation. Refusal to decrypt or otherwise reveal the contents of files suspected of containing incriminating information may be treated as admission that violations have occurred or were intended.