Acceptable User/Network Policy
Definitions
- Email Bomb— In Internet usage, an email bomb is a form of net abuse consisting of sending huge volumes of email to an address in an attempt to overflow the mailbox or overwhelm the server where the email address is hosted in a denial-of-service attack.
- Encryption— is the conversion of data into a form, called a cipher text, that cannot be easily understood by unauthorized people.
- Extranet— An extranet is a computer network that allows controlled access from the outside for specific business or educational purposes.
- Internet— The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet Protocol Suite (TCP/IP) to serve billions of users.
- Intranet— An intranet is a private network that is contained within an enterprise.
- Junk mail— Advertising of one sort or another that arrives in your postal mailbox along with the mail you really want or need.
- MiFi— Mobile WiFi hotspots.
- Network— A computer network is a system in which computers are connected to share information and resources.
- Spam— Unauthorized and/or unsolicited electronic mass mailings.
- Trojan Horse— A Trojan horse, or Trojan, is malware that appears to perform a desirable function for the user prior to run or install but instead facilitates unauthorized access of the user's computer system
Overview
Keuka College provides access to modern information technology in support of its mission to promote excellence and achievement across its mission areas of instruction, research, and service. We seek to protect the privilege of using the College’s computing systems and software, including its internal and external data networks, for all members of the College community, by safeguarding the institution’s information technology resources against harm and illegal actions. Consequently, it is important for users to behave in a responsible, ethical, and legal manner.
Information Technology Services’ intentions for publishing an Acceptable Use Policy are not to impose restrictions that are contrary to Keuka College’s established culture of openness, trust and integrity. Information Technology Services is committed to protecting Keuka College's employees, partners and the College from illegal or damaging actions by individuals, either knowingly or unknowingly.
Internet/Intranet/Extranet-related systems, including but not limited to computer equipment, software, operating systems, storage media, network accounts providing electronic mail, WWW browsing, and FTP, are the property of Keuka College. These systems are to be used in serving the interests of the College—its students, faculty, staff, and community members—in the course of normal operations.
Effective security is a team effort involving the participation and support of every Keuka College employee and affiliate who deals with information and/or information systems. It is the responsibility of every computer user to know these guidelines, and to conduct their activities in an ethical, courteous, and legal manner.
Keuka College reserves the right to add, delete or modify any provision of this Acceptable Use Policy at any time without notice, effective upon posting of the modified Policy on the College website.
Purpose
The purpose of this policy is to outline the acceptable use of computer equipment at Keuka College. These rules are in place to protect the employees and students of Keuka College and to promote the ethical and appropriate use of Keuka College’s computing facilities and resources. Inappropriate use exposes Keuka College to risks including virus attacks, compromise of network systems and services, and legal issues.
Scope
This policy applies to students, employees, contractors, consultants, temporaries, and other workers at Keuka College, including all personnel affiliated with third parties. This policy applies to all equipment that is owned or leased by Keuka College.
Policy
General Use and Ownership
The use of Keuka College’s resources is a privilege, not a right, and is granted under the conditions of appropriate usage as stated in this policy. While Keuka College’s network administration respects legitimate privacy interests for students, faculty and staff, within appropriate limits for education and for ethical and legal reasons, users should be aware that the data they create on the College systems remains the property of Keuka College. In exceptional circumstances, and to assist in troubleshooting and resolving system problems, Keuka College reserves the right to search, inspect, and review any and all communications transmitted through the College’s communications systems, including communications records of any kind the College stores with a third party storage vendor.
Faculty and staff are responsible for exercising good judgment regarding the reasonableness of personal use. If there is any uncertainty, employees should consult their supervisor or manager.
Information Technology Services recommends that any information that users consider sensitive or vulnerable be encrypted. Please consult with ITS as needed to determine appropriate encryption methods.
Students, faculty, and staff are prohibited from revealing any Keuka College confidential or proprietary information, trade secrets, or any other material covered by Keuka College’s Confidential Information Policy.
While Keuka College's network administration desires to provide a reasonable level of privacy, users should be aware that the data they create on the corporate systems remains the property of Keuka College. Because of the need to protect Keuka College's network, our network administration cannot guarantee the confidentiality of information stored on any network device belonging to Keuka College.
For security and network maintenance purposes, authorized individuals within Keuka College may monitor equipment, systems and network traffic at any time.
Keuka College reserves the right to audit networks and systems on a periodic basis to ensure compliance with this policy.
Security and Proprietary Information
The user interface for information contained on Internet/Intranet/Extranet-related systems should be classified as either confidential or not confidential, as defined by College confidentiality guidelines, details of which can be found in human resources policies.]
Examples of confidential information include but are not limited to:
- College private or College strategies
- Competitor sensitive
- Trade secrets
- Specifications
- Employee and student information
- Research data
Employees should take all necessary steps to prevent unauthorized access to this information.
User Responsibilities
Keep passwords secure and do not share accounts. Authorized users are responsible for the security of their passwords and accounts. System level passwords should be changed quarterly; user level passwords should be changed every six months.
All PCs, laptops, and workstations should be secured with a password-protected screensaver with the automatic activation feature set at 10 minutes or less, or by logging-off when the host will be unattended.
Use encryption of information in compliance with Information Technology Service's Acceptable Encryption Use policy.
Postings by employees from a Keuka College email address to newsgroups should contain a disclaimer stating the opinions expressed are strictly their own and not necessarily those of Keuka College, unless posting is in the course of duties.\
All hosts used by the employee that are connected to the Keuka College Internet/Intranet/Extranet, whether owned by the employee or Keuka College, shall be continually executing approved virus-scanning software with a current virus database unless overridden by departmental or group policy.
Students and employees shall not engage in any activities that may harm or tarnish the image, reputation, and/or goodwill of Keuka College and/or any of its employees. Students and employees are also prohibited from making any discriminatory, disparaging, defamatory, or harassing comments or otherwise engaging in any conduct prohibited by Keuka College’s Non-Discrimination and Anti-Harassment policy.
Students and employees may also not attribute personal statements, opinions, or beliefs to Keuka College. If a student, faculty or staff member is expressing their beliefs and/or opinions, they may not, expressly or implicitly, represent themselves as a representative of Keuka College.
Students and employees must use extreme caution when opening email attachments received from unknown senders, which may contain viruses, email bombs, or Trojan horse codes.
Unacceptable Use
The following activities are, in general, prohibited. Students and employees may be exempted from these restrictions during the course of their legitimate job responsibilities (e.g., systems administration staff may have a need to disable the network access of a host if that host is disrupting production services).
Under no circumstances is a student or employee of Keuka College authorized to engage in any activity that is illegal under local, state, federal or international law while utilizing Keuka College-owned resources.
The lists below are by no means exhaustive, but attempt to provide a framework for activities which fall into the category of unacceptable use.
System and Network Activities
The following activities are strictly prohibited, with no exceptions:
- Violations of the rights of any person or College protected by copyright, trade secret, patent or other intellectual property, or similar laws or regulations, including, but not limited to, the installation or distribution of "pirated" or other software products that are not appropriately licensed for use by Keuka College.
- Unauthorized copying of copyrighted material including, but not limited to, digitization and distribution of photographs from magazines, books or other copyrighted sources, copyrighted music, and the installation of any copyrighted software for which Keuka College or the end user does not have an active license is strictly prohibited.
- Exporting software, technical information, encryption software or technology, in violation of international or regional export control laws, is illegal. The appropriate management should be consulted prior to export of any material that is in question.
- ●Use of Keuka College computers or networks for any illegal purpose, including, but not limited to the use of computers or the network in violation of federal, state or local laws regarding such subjects as obscenity, pornography, child pornography, hate communications, discriminatory harassment, or criminal activity.
- Introduction of malicious programs into the network or server (e.g., viruses, worms, Trojan horses, email bombs, etc.).
- Revealing your account password to others or allowing use of your account by others. This includes family and other household members when work is being done at home.
- Using a Keuka College computing asset to actively engage in procuring or transmitting material that is in violation of sexual harassment or hostile workplace laws in the user's local jurisdiction.
- Making fraudulent offers of products, items, or services originating from any Keuka College account.
- Making statements about warranty, expressly or implied, unless it is a part of normal job duties.
- Using the network for commercial activity.
- Effecting security breaches or disruptions of network communication. Security breaches include, but are not limited to, accessing data of which the employee is not an intended recipient or logging into a server or account that the employee is not expressly authorized to access, unless these duties are within the scope of regular duties. For purposes of this section, "disruption" includes, but is not limited to, network sniffing, pinged floods, packet spoofing, denial of service, and forged routing information for malicious purposes.
- Port scanning or security scanning is expressly prohibited unless prior notification to Information Technology Services is made.
- Executing any form of network monitoring which will intercept data not intended for the employee's host, unless this activity is a part of the employee's normal job/duty.
- Circumventing user authentication or security of any host, network or account.
- Interfering with or denying service to any user other than the employee's host (for example, denial of service attack).
- Using any program/script/command, or sending messages of any kind, with the intent to interfere with, or disable, a user's terminal session, via any means, locally or via the Internet/Intranet/Extranet.
- Providing information about, or lists of, Keuka College employees to parties outside Keuka College.
Email and Communications Activities
Sending unsolicited email messages, including the sending of "junk mail" or other advertising material to individuals who did not specifically request such material (email spam).
Any form of harassment via email, telephone or paging, whether through language, frequency, or size of messages.
Unauthorized use, or forging, of email header information.
Solicitation of email for any other email address, other than that of the poster's account, with the intent to harass or to collect replies.
Creating or forwarding "chain letters," "Ponzi" or other "pyramid" schemes of any type.
Use of unsolicited email originating from within Keuka College's networks of other Internet/Intranet/Extranet service providers on behalf of, or to advertise, any service hosted by Keuka College or connected via Keuka College's network.
Posting the same or similar non-business-related messages to large numbers of Usenet newsgroups (newsgroup spam).
Enforcement
Any student and employee found to have violated this policy may be subject to disciplinary action, up to and including separation from the institution.
Use of Personal WiFi Devices
Personal WiFi (wireless) routers (or rogue access points) significantly and negatively impact the Keuka College campus WiFi environment. They cause the campus WiFi environment to deteriorate and in some cases make KC EAP or Keuka College networks unusable by all.
WiFi uses radio frequency that is open for everyone to use, unlike cell phones that operate in frequency that is licensed and assigned to a specific cell phone company. As a consequence, large scale WiFi networks, such as the ones deployed on the Keuka College campus, require careful coordination and cooperation to operate well and provide quality service.
All Access Points (APs) or routers in Keuka College buildings need to work together so they do not occupy the same channel. Keuka College carefully designs and operates the WiFi networks in each building to allow multiple APs to work with each other and provide a reliable and stable WiFi environment for all to use. When an outside AP (rogue) is used, this carefully designed system of avoiding interference and maximizing cooperation deteriorates.
Depending on the number of rogue APs, the Keuka College campus APs must spend their time and energy trying to find a free channel rather than providing a clear usable signal for everyone to use. This is known as RF noise. In addition, when two APs try to communicate to their clients (WiFi devices) over the same channel, their signals interfere with each other and cause connectivity problems for all users trying to use KC EAP or Keuka College networks.
RF noise and interference can also come from cordless phones, microwave ovens, MiFi mobile hotspots and certain WiFi enabled printers and projectors since they also operate on a 2.4 or 5 GHz frequency range.
We want everyone at Keuka College to be able to connect their devices they need when on campus. For some locations and devices this means using a hardwired connection rather than the WiFi network or a personal access point.
By refraining from using personal WiFi routers, you make an important contribution to our college WiFi network that can work well and serve all community members.
If you have a situation that you believe requires a personal access point, please contact the ITS Service Center at 315-279-5217 so we can assist you.
For Assistance or Questions, contact the ITS Service Center:
itservicedesk@keuka.edu
(315) 279-5217