IU Computer Science Department Computing Conduct Policy

As a member of the Indiana University computing environment, users of the Computer Science Department computing facilities are required to abide by the policies set forth in the Indiana University Computer User's Privileges and Responsibilities Document as well as any other policies governing conduct at Indiana University. Many of the policies outlined below are also included in the IU policies but are included here for emphasis.

• No illegal activity - Your account must not be used to engage in or assist any illegal activity including, but not limited to, harassment, abuse, fraud, theft, and vandalism.
• No commercial activity - We do not allow any commercial activity from CS computers without prior authorization. Some examples of things that are not permitted would include sending out email advertisements, hosting a business web page, or selling advertising space on your CS homepage. If you have any doubt about whether your activity would be considered commercial, please ask.
• No SPAM - In the context of email, spam can be defined as the sending of bulk quantities of unsolicited email and is prohibited. In the context of Usenet News, spamming means to send a message to a large number of newsgroups where most of the newsgroups have nothing to do with the subject of the message. Spam violates the spirit of the university community.
• Account monitoring - The CS department systems staff reserves the right to monitor all system activity in the event of any real or suspected security threat. This may include, but is not limited to, the monitoring of keyboard input, file contents, or network traffic as needed to assess, control, or stop any security-related attack on our computing systems.
• No account and password sharing - Your account is for your use only. You must never allow anyone to use your account for any purpose. You should protect your account password and never give it to anyone. No member of the CS systems support staff will ever need or ask for your password. You must also not configure your account (via. .rhosts, .shosts, .ssh/authorized_keys, or other similar authentication method) in such a way as to permit others to gain access to your account.
• No setuid/setgid programs - On a unix system, a setuid or setgid program allows other users to run programs under your user identity or group. Such programs are not allowed without prior approval.
• No anonymous activity - Nothing you do on the CS systems should be identifiable as having been done by anyone else. You should never attempt to send email or newsgroup messages in such a way as to conceal or forge your identity. The finger information in the password file (this can be changed using the chfn command) should include your real name.
• Respect the privacy of others - Just because another user has left files in his or her home directory world readable, this does not give you the right to use them. Some users do not understand the file protection mechanisms that are available and may inadvertently leave files readable.
• Do not attempt to compromise system security - The CS department is very concerned with the security of its systems and you should engage in no activity that might compromise security. For example, you should never try to exploit a potential security vulnerability to gain privileged access to any CS system even if your intent is just to experiment and not do anything malicious.
• Your home directory must comform to certain security-related constraints - There are certain file and directory permissions you can set that open your home directory up to attack or use by other users. For this reason, your home directory must not violate the following rules:
  • Your home directory must not be writable by any other user. This could include setting the group or other write permission bit or by using Access Control Lists (ACLs).
  • Your home directory must not be readable (r) by the group (g+r) or world/other (o+r). You can make your home directory searchable/accessible (x) by everyone, but it can't be readable. This restriction prevent others from doing a directory listing in your home directory which can prevent inadvertant file exposure. But, since it can be searchable, it still allows file sharing with other users.
  • Your ~/bin directory must not be writable by any other user.
  • The following files in your home directory must not be writable by any other user: .forward, .emacs, .cshrc, .login, .profile, .bashrc, .bash_profile, .tcshrc, .kshrc.
  • The following files and directories in your home directory must not be readable by any other user: .ssh, .rhosts, .shosts, .Xauthority.

  The systems staff does scans to identify files and directories that violate these rules and the permissions may be changed without notice.

• No unauthorized persistent server processes - A persistent server process can be defined as any process that makes it possible to access system resources from a remote machine for an extended period of time (1 day or more). Some examples of servers are web, ftp, irc, and news servers. Users are not permitted to run any such server process on any CS machine, or non-CS machine using the CS network, outside of the Burrow Cluster in LH004 without faculty sponsorship and approval from the CS staff. If you wish to run a server process on any of the Burrow machines, please read the associated FAQ entry for more information.
• Don't overload system resources - You should engage in no activity that overloads the computing systems or support staff. You should also never run cpu-intensive processes such as SETI@Home or any of the various crypto-challenges on any shared machine without prior approval.
• Do not leave machines locked - The machines in the graduate (LH125) and undergraduate (Burrow) labs as well as machines in shared offices should not be left screen-locked for more than 15 minutes. These machines are for use by multiple people so you should logout if you are going to be away from the machine for any length of time. You may be logged out of any machine left locked for longer than 15 minutes.