Easy Access Account Policies

30 July 1994, oac@uci.edu

All currently registered and regularly enrolled students at UCI may obtain a free Easy Access account on the Academic Computing Sun computer system, "EA," which runs a version of the Unix operating system. Accounts are valid for one academic year and are renewable for as long as you are enrolled at UCI. Accounts may be renewed each fall quarter after being assigned.

You do not need to be enrolled in a computer class to have an Easy Access account. Your account may not be used by anyone other than yourself.

The current allocation for Easy Access accounts is $200.00 per year for each account. Each account holder is allowed 750 kilobytes of disk storage. You are responsible for monitoring your own usage via the "miser" and "cost" programs. If you over-spend, your account will be locked and you will be unable to use it for the rest of the school year. If your account is locked for using too much money, you will NOT be able to access any of the files in your account until it is unlocked when your account is renewed in July. Anyone who misuses a computer account will lose access to the account and any accompanying rights and privileges, and may also be subject to punitive action through University channels.

A Few Words of Wisdom

• There is a finite amount of money available to Easy Access accounts that is less than ($200.00 / year) * (number of students at UCI). In fact, the actual amount is only about 2.5% of that number. Because of this, it may be necessary to restrict or even eliminate Easy Access computing at some time during the school year if the funds are spent too quickly.
• You should change your password the first time you log on, and at regular intervals later on, to help keep your accounts secure from unauthorized use.
• Do Not let anyone else use your account. All UCI full time students may get an Easy Access account, so there is no reason for anyone to use another person's account.
• The use of Easy Access accounts for personal monetary profit is strictly forbidden. The State of California has no desire to fund your private endeavors.
• Do Not use your Easy Access account to harass others via electronic mail, or by any other means.
• Read and understand the section, "Using your EA Account" at the end of this document.

EA System

Ea has a sophisticated electronic mail system for communicating with other users locally and with users of UCInet machines, Bitnet, Usenet, NSFnet, and other off-campus networks and machines throughout the world via the Internet. For beginners who wish to send mail, we offer "pine," which is a menu-assisted program that handles electronic mail.

Ways to Get More Computing

• Ask a faculty member to sponsor you on some project. The academic departments have funds that may be used for computing.
• Buy your own account. If you wish to pay for an account, that option is available. Call (714) 856-5953 for more information.

Using Your Account

As a member of the UCI community a wide range of computing resources, both on and off campus, is available for your use. When you use computing at UCI you become part of our community of computer users, and like any community we can all make the best use of our resources if we all use them responsibly. If you make unethical use of UCI computers, you can be subjected to penalties ranging from a reprimand to expulsion from the University and criminal prosecution. You, of course, have the right to appeal any such charge or accusation - the University Ombudsman's office can help you prepare an appeal.

This document outlines the UCI policies for network and computer users. The fundamental principles behind our policies are these:

• UCI computer resources are provided for your use in support of your academic activities as a student at the University.
• You are responsible for security on the accounts and machines which are provided for your use. This includes the responsibility to set passwords appropriately and to protect their confidentiality.
• The computer resources provided to you are for your use and are not to be used by any other person.
• While using the computers, you should never do anything that harms another user or prevents him or her from getting work done.

Any account created for you remains the property of the Regents of the University of California. You are responsible for this account, and you may not allow any other person to use it. The primary purpose of your account is to allow you to carry out your instructional activities. You may also make modest use of these resources for other purposes, such as sending electronic mail, reading the electronic bulletin boards, and playing games, provided that this usage does not significantly interfere with the primary use of the machines. An example of how one might "significantly interfere" would be to tie up a machine for game-playing when no others are free and someone else is waiting to use them. If you have a game or other program you would like to make available to other users, please email "consult" or call the consultant at 856-5551. You may not use the machines for commercial purposes, such as preparing bills for your company or advertising products, or for work related to non-UCI organizations, such as an off-campus political or religious group. If you are in doubt about whether some use of the machines is allowed, call the consultant.

Some unethical and illegal activities are listed below, but it is impractical-perhaps impossible-to produce a complete list. A careful reading of this policy plus the use of common sense should enable you to avoid problems. Be aware that much of the activities listed below are a crime under the California penal code section 502.

• You may not introduce viruses, worms, Trojan horses, password cracking or login spoofing programs onto any University computer or network. You may not store such a program on a UCI computer even if you only wish to study it.
• You may not interfere with others' ability to make use of the resources. For example, it might be reasonable to lock a terminal if you need to leave the room for two or three minutes, but it is not reasonable to lock it while you leave to buy lunch. Another example would be doing something that ties up all or a significant fraction of the machine, thus preventing others from receiving their fair share.
• You may not destroy other people's work.
• You may not "spy" on people, that is, you may not attempt to gain information from their accounts, their screens, their diskettes, or from their discarded listings when there is good reason to believe that they do not wish you to obtain that information. This includes both attempting to violate the protection facilities provided by the system and also taking deliberate advantage of someone else's failure to protect sensitive information on their account. This works both ways. For example, it would be unethical for a faculty member or staff member to browse through your personal messages just out of curiosity, even if they have a security level that allows them to do so; we agree to respect your privacy. We do, however, retain the right to inspect material on your account when this is necessary to investigate a suspected violation of university rules, such as a cheating incident or a violation of the rules in this document.
• You may not send mail or other communications that appear to come from someone else.
• You may not advertise any commercial products or use your instructional or research account to earn money. Non-commercial things like posting your used car advertisement on Usenet are permitted, though. If for some reason you need an account that will be used for commercial purposes, see the Office of Academic Computing.
• You may not display offensive material in any publicly accessible area. There are materials available on the Internet and elsewhere that some members of the UCI community will find offensive. (One example is sexually explicit graphics.) The University is committed to maintaining the free and open exchange of ideas as well as a non-offensive working environment. Thus, UCI does not restrict the availability of potentially offensive material, but UCI does regard as unethical conduct the display of such material in any publicly accessible area, including on terminal screens in public terminal rooms and in computer labs.
• You may not use the computers' printers as copying machines. For example, you may not print out one hundred copies of a report; instead, print out one copy of the report and use a copying machine to obtain the other 99.

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