COMPUTER NETWORK POLICY
I frequently get asked to consult organizations
on developing Ethics Policies. Generally I would point them to the Ethics
Policies of other universities or network organizations. Recently at FAU
we had 5 separate incidences of network abuses that originated from a student
run Usenet newsfeed system called Cybernet. Cybernet had the domain address
of FAU.EDU and Information Resource Management (IRM) was contacted by the
Internet Computer Emergency Response Team, regarding the abuses which were
effecting the reputation of FAU on the Internet.
To make a *very* long story short. I worked
with Wes Morgan, who had developed a network policy for U of Kentucky that
had never been approved by his organization, and developed the Computer
Network Policy . This has been approved by IRM and beginning in January,
1995 all students, faculty and staff receiving accounts must sign this prior
to getting their accounts. I thought that this might be useful for other
organizations as well.
The Network Computing Policy in Postscript
version in now available. Organizations can use and copy this in its entirety
onto their letterhead stationary. It is "standard" enough to be used by
any organization where users access network services. If there is someone
that will allow me to upload this to their anonymous FTP server for user
downloads, please let me know, as FAU still does not have an anonymous FTP
server.