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Acceptable Use Policy (AUP) of NIIF/Hungarnet *

Introduction

1.§ The present document (in the followings: AUP) regulates the use of the NIIF/Hungarnet network by the NIIF member organisations and by other users of the NIIF services in accordance with the related Government Decree No. 95/1999 (VI.23.) (in the followings: Decree) defining the operation of the NIIF network within the frameworks of the National Information Infrastructure Development (NIIF) Program.

Definitions

2.§ The terms used by this AUP are as follows:

a) "National higher education and research network" or "NIIF network": the computer network operated within the frameworks of the NIIF Program - also called "Hungarnet network". The backbone of the network is called HBONE.

b) "NIIF services": the network connection, the networking and information services, and the infrastructure provided directly or through contractual outsourcing by the NIIF Institute to the NIIF member institutions, within the frameworks of the contracts jointly signed by the NIIF member institution and the NIIF Institute, in accordance with 9.§. of the Decree.

c) "NIIF member institutions": universities, high-schools, secondary schools, research and development organisations, public collections, and other educational, scientific, cultural, and governmental organisations, corresponding to 1.§. of the Decree, and having signed, in accordance with 9.§. of the Decree, a contract with NIIFI (the NIIF Institute) about their joining to the NIIF network and accessing the NIIF services.

d) "NIIF users": the end-users within the NIIF member institutions.

Mission of the NIIF network

3.§ The mission and basic task of the NIIF network, in accordance with 1.§. of the Decree, is to provide all Hungarian universities and other academic institutions, research and development organisations, as well as public collections, with country-wide and international computer networking connectivity and services, for their goals related to higher education, science, and culture.

4.§ The NIIF network may be used by the member institutions in accordance with the above 3.§. Using the network for administrative and information activities related to the basic operation of the member institutions is also acceptable.

5.§ The services of the NIIF network may also be used by organisations not being NIIF member institutions but being in contractual relation with an NIIF member organisation regarding project oriented co-operation in the fields of education, research and development, public collections, science, or culture, but exclusively during the duration of the project and for the aims and goals of the contracted co-operation. This kind of a co-operation may be just of a fixed, limited duration. Both starting and finishing such a project-related co-operation should be reported to the NIIF Institute by the involved NIIF member institution. If the NIIF Program Committee considers such a contract not belonging to the mentioned fields of activities, the use of the NIIF network may be prohibited by the Program Committee.

6.§ The NIIF network can be used for any activities within the above frameworks, provided that the activity is not prohibited by 7.§.

Use of the NIIF network

7.§ The use of the NIIF network is prohibited for the following types of activities, as well as for tests and/or experiments related to such activities:

a) preparation or execution of any actions being in contrast with the Hungarian law, including, among others, the followings: hurting personal rights, illegal money-making (pyramid games etc.), hurting copyright (eg. illegal distribution of software, etc.);

b) making available transit traffic for the benefit of non-members of NIIF, including such an action based on good-will, etc.;

c) forwarding NIIF services to third parties (non-members of NIIF), including such an action based on good-will, except co-operation in accordance with 5.§ above. Systems connected to the NIIF network should be configured so that such illegal actions are made impossible (eg. open mailer gateways, etc.);

d) profit-making, direct commercial activities and advertisement;

e) activities disturbing or endangering the ordinary operation and safety of the network and its resources, including the distribution of information and software products serving such illegal activities;

f) unreasonably high intensity use of the network and its resources (eg. letter-bombs, networked games, unsolicited advertisements, spamming);

g) unauthorised accessing and/or use of network resources and non-public information available through the network, including unreasonably high intensity experimentation with network resources (machines) and services (eg. TCP port scan), even if for testing purposes;

h) unauthorised modification, eroding, destroying, or any other ways of destructing the network resources or the information available through the network, including any attempts to do so;

i) any activities hurting the religious, ethnic, political, or any kinds of sensitivities of any others (eg. communicating, distributing, making available hard pornography, pedophile content, etc.);

j) unreasonable disturbance of the activities of any other users of the network (eg. spamming, unsolicited commercials, etc.);

k) unreasonably high intensity use of the network resources for private purposes;

l) exploiting the network resources and services for purposes being alien to the original basic goal of using that resources/services (eg. sending irrelevant messages to newsgroups or mailing lists);

m) generating false network messages, mimicking network resources, misleading other users by such actions (spoofing).

Responsibilities/duties of the users

8.§ The users are required to get acquainted with this AUP and to follow the rules this AUP lays down.

9.§ Those users utilising, through the NIIF services, the services of other network service providers, should also follow the rules laid down by those other providers/communities.

10.§ The users are liable for any damage caused by them to the NIIF Institute or to any third party.

11.§ The user is required to help the NIIF Institute and the other NIIF member institutions in their efforts devoted to discover possible hurting of the rules laid out by this AUP and to trace any possible destruction, loss, or damage, and to dissolve any consequences of such destructions, losses and/or damages.

12.§ Further details of the rights and duties of the NIIF member institutions are described by the contracts mutually signed by the NIIF member institute and the NIIF Institute.  

Making the AUP taken into consideration, sanctions in case of hurting the AUP rule

13.§ In case of suspicion or reporting about any hurting of the rules of the AUP, the related NIIF member institution investigates the case and makes the necessary steps. In case of a minor hurting of the rules, or if there is no sign of a conscious intention of such a hurting, the unacceptably behaving user should be warned about the case and should be informed about the AUP. Repeated similar actions should be considered conscious and intentional. In case of such a conscious and intentional hurting of the AUP, the committing user should be excluded from accessing the NIIF services. The exclusion may be either temporary or final.

14.§ In case of a severe hurting of the AUP (eg. a case causing problems for more than one NIIF member institutions), the related NIIF Institution should report to the NIIF Institute. Such issues shall be jointly investigated by the NIIF Institute and the related NIIF member institution. If the issue has an effect also on an other network, the representatives of that other network shall also be involved in the investigations.

15.§ In case of a severe hurting of the AUP, the NIIF Institute is entitled to immediately limit the access of the related NIIF member institution. In such cases the related NIIF member institute is not entitled to receive any damage waiver. However, the NIIF Institute should as soon as possible inform the related NIIF member institution about the reasons of limiting the access. The NIIF member institution should co-operate with the NIIF Institute in their efforts to discontinue hurting the AUP and to eliminate or minimise the possible losses.

16.§ If necessary, the NIIF Institute initiates legal actions.

17.§ The NIIF Institute intends to avoid any losses stemming from hurting the AUP and to fast and effective elimination of the losses caused by the actions not being AUP-conform. However, it is to be taken into consideration that the NIIF Institute is unable to be liable for the possible losses arising from hurting the AUP by any user.

18.§ The NIIF Institute and the NIIF member institutions do their best, within the available technical possibilities, to avoid illegal and unauthorised access to the information passing the network or being accessible through the network. However, it is to be taken into consideration that technical limitations make it impossible to guarantee for absolute security and safety. Therefore the users are warned to be careful when storing or transmitting information on or via the network.

19.§ Staff members responsible for the NIIF network operation within the NIIF Institute or the NIIF member institutions may access the users’ information just because of security and safety reasons, or in case of a suspicion about hurting the AUP. Even such accessing of the user information is limited to the necessary level, and the related user should duly be informed about such an accessing of his/her information. Those persons being responsible for the network operation must not inform third persons about the information they have accessed, and such accessed information also must not be made public. However, in case of a suspicion about hurting the AUP, the accessed information may be forwarded to those persons being involved in investigating the issue.

20.§ The task of the NIIF Ethical Committee, established by the NIIF Technical Committee, is to make position statements about issues related to the AUP, provided that a request for such a position statement arrives at them on behalf of the NIIF Institute, or an NIIF member institution, or an NIIF user. However, the Ethical Committee is not a forum for reviewing concrete decisions.

Concluding regulations

21.§ The AUP enters into force on the day of its public announcement.

22.§ From the date of announcing this AUP, the earlier regulation „Rules of using the Hungarnet network (Acceptable Use Policy)” (dated 23 May 1997, v1.0) is to be considered invalid.

23.§ The present AUP is to be attached to the contracts between the NIIF Institute and the NIIF member institutions about their joining the NIIF network and accessing the NREN services. The AUP is also available by the Internet, on the NIIF web server (http://www.niif.hu), and also in printed form at the NIIF Institute.

* Unofficial translation of the original AUP text approved in Hungarian language

Appendix: ”Suggestions and recommendations for the NIIF member institutions” 

Appendix

Suggestions and recommendations for the NIIF member institutions

It is recommended that all NIIF member institutions prepare their own, local AUPs. Such local AUPs should be in harmony with the NIIF AUP. The local AUPs may also (partly or entirely) contain the present text of the NIIF AUP, but in that case the text elements taken from the NIIF AUP should be well recognisable within the text of the local AUP.

It is advisable to involve into the local AUPs the following elements:

1. Possible additional rules, constraints, and limitations stemming from the local specialties and technical parameters (bandwidth etc.);
2. Methods applied for keeping AUP-conform usage; Names, functions, contact parameters of persons being responsible for AUP-related tasks and sub-tasks;
3. Procedures and sanctions to be applied in case of hurting the AUP;
4. Actions to be made in case of severe issues (network operation problems, attacks, other dangerous situations);
5. Duties of the users, especially:
6. getting acquainted with, and taking into consideration, the local AUP and the "netiquette"; co-operation with the operators of the network in order to keep AUP-conformity;
7. taking into consideration the security and safety regulations (accounts not to be transferred, passwords to be regularly changed, reporting about unnecessary accounts);
8. Rights of the users, especially:
9. the right to an account (depending on technical possibilities);
10. right to build and maintain a personal web page (depending on technical resources);
11. ways and possibilities of how to access the basic information about using the network services;
12. taking care of personal rights on behalf of the operators of the network;
13. possibility to ask for help against networked disturbance;
14. receiving information about planned or extraordinary technical outages (maintenance, loss of e-mails, etc.) on behalf of the network operators;
15. receiving information about local constraints (eg. e-mail filtering) on behalf of the network operators.