Network Usage Agreement

Marist College views the network as a shared resource and the use of the network as a privilege. Thus, network use or applications which inhibit or interfere with the use of the network by others are not permitted. The College reserves the right to terminate any connection without notice or refund should it be determined that network traffic being generated from that connection is drastically inhibiting or interfering with the use of the network or network resources by others. This includes problems caused by virus, worms, trojan horses or other programs.

Participant's Responsibilities

Marist College expects network users to be careful and responsible in their use of the network and civil to other network users. They are also expected to comply with all College, City, County, State, and Federal laws and regulations governing the use of computers, networks and the Internet.

The overarching policies governing computer use at Marist College is documented in the Information and Computing Agreement on the reverse side of your Marist Account Assignment letter. It is the responsibility of each person using the network to read and abide by these existing policies and standards and the points outlined below as they relate specifically to the network.

Network participants must provide and maintain their own personal computer.

The owner of the computer must be present whenever work is done on it by Information Technology personnel. (For college owned equipment, the owner is the registered user of the fixed asset)

Theft, rearrangement, or damage to any College computer or network equipment, facilities, or property is strictly prohibited. This includes all public computer labs, network hardware and jacks.

Users who make use of bulletin board systems and other network communication utilities (e.g. newsgroups, WWW) do so voluntarily, with the understanding that they may encounter material they deem offensive. Marist College assumes no responsibility for material viewed on these network communication utilities.

Chain letters and pyramid schemes waste resources and are not permitted.

The Marist College network and computing resources are provided for academic, research and personal use. Use of the network or other computing resources for commercial purposes is strictly prohibited.

Network users recognize that computer systems and networks are imperfect and waive any right to compensation for lost work or time that may arise from their use. The College cannot compensate users for degradation or loss of personal data, software, or hardware as a result of their use of College-owned systems or networks, or as a result of assistance they may seek from Network personnel. Users are responsible for making backup copies of their computer files.

Network users are responsible for the physical and software security of their computers. The registered owner of the computer will be held responsible for any violation of Marist policies traced back to the computer regardless of whether or not the owner personally committed the violations. Marist reserves the right to require the removal of any software which we deem a security or network risk as a condition of reinstatement of network access.

Use of Peer-to-Peer (P2P) programs on the Marist network is prohibited.

	Peer-to-Peer programs were banned for reasons of equitable use of resources and several P2P programs have been shown to incorrectly reconfigure computers on the network, and P2P programs are a current method of spreading virus.
	P2P program go by various names, such as Napster, Imesh, Gnutella, eDonkey, KaZaA, Blubster and many many others
	Simply highlighting the P2P program icon on the desktop and hitting delete is not sufficient to remove that program
	P2P programs often start running automatically when the computer is powered on.
	If a user is found running a P2P program on their computer, phone mail and email will be left on their Marist account notifying the user that they will be removed from the network within 24 hours if the situation isn't corrected, or sooner if usage is detected. During this 24 hour grace period, the user is responsible for removing the offending program. If assistance is required, the user can request assistance from IT. Such assistance will be treated as a normal SWAT or problem assistance.
	If a user is found running P2P program a second time, the user will immediately be removed from the network. Phone mail and email will be left on their Marist account notifying the user that they have been removed. To be reinstated, the user must signup to have their computer cleaned of the P2P program and sign a form identifying that they acknowledge such actions. This cleaning will be a treated as a normal part of SWAT or problem assistance. The user will remain off the network until IT has verified that the computer is free from P2P programs. At certain times of the semester, this may take several weeks. For students, parental notification may take place at this time.
	The first and second times noted above are over the career of the student, NOT per semester.
	As noted elsewhere, the owner of the computer is responsible for the computer, no matter if they were in class or away from campus at the time of use.
	Excessive bandwidth use may result in being classified as P2P usage.

Denial of service attacks (smurfing), 'fire bombing' and any other type of network attack against a network user, or any other host on the Internet will be grounds for removal from the network.

Network access provided through network jacks are for one computer at a time. Allowing other computers to connect to the network through your computer (gatewaying) is prohibited. Anyone caught allowing another computer to connect to the Marist network through their own will lose their network access without refund of semester connection fee.

All computers connected to the Marist network will be assigned a single domain name (DNS name) for use within Marist and on the Internet. All DNS names will end with the Marist domain name, marist.edu. No machine on the Marist network can use a domain name other than marist.edu without permission of Information Technology.

Users are responsible for running a current virus scanner and keep their operating system up to date for security patches. Any machine found to be not current on known security problems or with a virus/worm/trojan horse or any other program designated by Marist College to be harmful to the network may be removed from the network at anytime or may be prevented from access to the network. Marist College provides a current copy of McAfee virus scanner with up to date license for virus. It is strongly reccomended that this version be installed. Additional details can be found at the IT Training web site

Resnet Personnel Responsibilities

Marist College implemented ResNet for use by its students living in residence halls for personal use. ResNet personnel affirm their commitment to keeping the network functioning properly and as continuously as possible. Response to network problems will occur during normal business hours. Network problems occurring after business hours will be responded to in the next business day. In the event of serious residential network service interruptions, computing resources are available in the main Computer Lab in Donnelly Hall.

Marist College reserves the right to modify the Network Usage Agreement as it deems necessary.