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Internet Unlimited
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Effective June 1, 1998 (revised May 20, 2004)
I. Validation
Customer use of any or all services provided by Internet Unlimited Ltd. constitutes Customer agreement to abide by these policies.
II. Overview:
This document details the policies and procedures established by the operators of the computer systems collectively known as the domain iul.net. In addition, they pertain to any connection made to any equipment or terminal server owned or operated by Internet Unlimited Ltd. and connected physically or logically to the public telephone network or through private connection to the collection of networks commonly know as the Internet. These systems are maintained and offered for use to Customers of Internet Unlimited Ltd (hereafter known as IUL) on a fee for service basis.
These policies pertain to ALL Customer activities whether through interactive or machine-machine connection.
In general, Customers are given unlimited access to the facilities and programs available through use of client programs on the user's own computer when connected through IUL network access facilities, subject to the provision that they not deliberately cause problems with other's use of the system.
Specific prohibitions are detailed later in this document, and include such things as:
- Deliberately crashing the system.
- Deliberately using large amounts of system resources.
- Trying to break any security feature/setting.
- Copying Copyright software without vendor license.
- Using system resources to attack any other system in any way.
- Any activities which may be illegal under Alberta or Canadian Law.
III. Classes of Service:
All Access Accounts
Provided on the basis of one account to one user, the following applies: a minimal initial creation charge, an annual or monthly usage charge, and a specified additional cost for access time in excess of that allotted by user's billing plan per account. If more than one user associated with a billing name wishes to use the system, each must have a separate account. Regardless of who pays the bill for an account, the information and mail it contains are considered the property of the registered USER of the account, and the account may not be passed on to any other. If the USER of the account wishes to continue use of the account after the account is removed from the billing to another account, a new billing may be established with the payment of a normal billing account startup fee.
Individual Accounts may also be used for "Machine-Machine" traffic. We request that individual users who will be using or passing mail through the system have separate user accounts on the Customer computer or on IUL's computer, whichever is appropriate. At least one mail account, either local interactive, or on the Customer system, must be monitored by the customer periodically for account status and information. This account should be named 'postmaster' on client computers.
Certain facilities of the system, notably certain news groups with either strict availability guidelines or site license restrictions, may not be available for automatic download to Customer systems via machine to machine communications. Reading is allowed using "Authentication Capable" NNRP/NNTP type news readers.
Publication Accounts
Publication accounts are established to allow the user to construct and display information via the World Wide Web and the server facilities on the IUL computer systems. All such publication is subject to the policies which IUL periodically updates.
IV. Rights and Responsibilities
The following details the Rights and Responsibilities of Internet Unlimited Ltd. and their Customers. These Rights and Responsibilities are subject to change without notice.
Please note: It is Internet Unlimited Ltd's premise that continued use of an account with IUL. entails responsibilities associated with using these services. IUL will try to make Customer use of these services as easy, productive and inexpensive as we can in order to ensure Customer satisfaction. In order to do this however, we must enforce a high degree of user responsibility and cooperation in keeping this a premium service.
IUL'S RIGHTS:
IUL retains the right to prohibit a Customer's access to the system at any time for any reason. During such time any email addresses associated with the Customer's account may continue to receive and store the Customer's email. If access is permanently denied, upon request IUL will provide machine readable copy of the Customer's home directory and mail files for a reasonable fee consistent with its published hourly consulting rates.
IUL retains ownership of all commercial software purchased by IUL for use by Customers on the system, and may remove such software at any time.
IUL retains the right to substitute hardware and operating software as it sees fit, but will endeavor to maintain a consistent Customer interface and working software set.
IUL'S RESPONSIBILITIES:
IUL is responsible for providing to the Customer a consistent set of tools and resources.
IUL will endeavor to make available a full Internet News feed subject to applicable laws regarding minors and access to adult oriented news groups, along with facilities for interactive reading/response and batch pass through. This feed is subject to additional restrictions which may be placed on IUL by its upstream provider.
IUL will endeavor to pass Electronic Mail in a timely and consistent fashion between Customer and their addressees.
IUL will not knowingly release the contents of mail except to the addressed user unless required by court order. IUL will not view or log the contents of mail except as required to deliver it or forward it to the next delivery agent in its path. Viewing and/or logging of mail will be limited to the header lines conforming to the Simple Network Mail Protocol up to the first blank line, and/or the last 6 lines regardless of content. Customer email may be viewed in its entirety as necessary when IUL is requested to troubleshoot problems with the Customer's email services.
IUL provides information and/or programs "as is". IUL is not responsible for the fitness or correctness of the information or programs in its systems, or any system connected by whatever means to IUL's systems.
CUSTOMER RIGHTS:
Customer has the right to private correspondence via Electronic Mail.
Customer has the right to private storage of information in their home directory (if provided), subject only to applicable charges for storage, and subject to size limitations unless prior authorization has been obtained from IUL.
Customer has the right to download to their media any public domain software and information contained on or available for retrieval through the system.
CUSTOMER RESPONSIBILITIES:
Customer is responsible for arranging for backup of information in their home directories (if provided). IUL does periodic full system backups, however Customer may not rely on there being a backup maintained for any period.
Customer is responsible for maintaining security of their assigned account(s) on the system. Login name is public knowledge, however the password associated with the login name is privileged, and should not be published or given to any other. If the Customer knows or feels that their password has been compromised, the Customer should immediately change their password. Customer should not use trivial passwords. Customer will change their password if requested by IUL for any reason.
Customer is responsible for all activity on the system performed under the Customer's login and agrees to inform IUL of any breach of security in a timely fashion.
Customer is responsible for paying for all services and charges incurred by the account. Failure to keep the account balance current will result in suspension of the account until the balance has been paid including a suspension fee.
Disputed charges will be suspended from the account until the dispute is settled. It should be noted that the fees charged for service are based upon virtually 100% automatic billing, and repeated disputing of an account makes it not worth our while to continue serving the account.
V. System Security
IUL aims to provide privacy for its Customers' mail and home directory contents. In addition, IUL aims to control and prohibit any security breach from within the system, or from outside via the Internet connection.
SECURITY POLICIES AND PROCEDURES:
The security on any multi-user system is based upon the premise that the user is responsible for all activity run from the user's account/login. This requires that there be a policy limiting each account to the use of a single person. In addition, batch accounts which pass mail and/or commands to the system should have a similar policy.
Accounts which are used interactively by more than one user will be subject to suspension of service for a period of up to 10 days for the first offense, a minimum of 30 days for a second offense within 1 year, and permanently for a subsequent offense within 1 year. The use of a single login account for provision of multiple (public) access to the World Wide Web is specifically allowed, however Customers should recognize that it is possible that such use may incur disapproval from others on the net if use is abused.
Batch accounts which exhibit multiple use of internal accounts will be warned that such a policy is not in keeping with a secure site. If any account exhibits problem behavior, the batch account will be terminated until it can be determined that the One-user/account policy has been implemented, and the problem user has been dealt with appropriately.
The first line of defense on a public system is the account password. IUL enforces a policy of requiring a password on all accounts used for general access. The adequacy of account passwords will be tested from time to time using similar techniques to those used by system crackers. Account passwords found by using these techniques will be warned to change the password immediately to one conforming to common password guidelines. Accounts which consistently fail this audit will have a random password regenerated for them. Passwords will NEVER be provided via Email. If you wish a new password or account, please call us or Email us a phone number where you can be reached at a particular time.
Having established that the owner of the account is the only one that is allowed to use the account, it follows that anything done in the name of the account is the responsibility of the account holder.
SENSITIVE INFORMATION:
IUL maintains logs of system processes initiated on it's computers. Beyond this, Customer activity is not monitored; nor is the running of programs on the customer's personal computer while connected to the network via a PPP or similar connection. The information collected is used to compile the monthly usage billings to Customer, and in cases of policy breach, to track violations. These logs are rarely looked at by staff, but rather are summarized and tracked for gross violations by computer scripts. They are retained for accounting purposes for up to 7 years.
Customers maintain sensitive information on the system at their own risk. It should be noted that the system is not configured for more than "traditional" UNIX security, and therefore has no certification or security classification. IUL endeavors to track and stop any security attacks, however this is done in the interests of keeping the system available for Customer use rather than in the interests of protecting Customer information. This reflects the reality that this system is connected to a publicly accessible network which, by it's nature, does not maintain high levels of security.
IUL is doing its part to elevate the security of the Internet by monitoring for and, if necessary, prosecuting perpetrators of cases of security violation.
SPECIFICALLY PROHIBITED ACTIVITIES:
Crashing the system (for example: running "crash" or any similar program). It is noted that systems sometimes crash, and that a user may not recognize that they have caused such a crash. In cases such as this, if the user's actions are traced as the cause of the crash and the user is notified of such, any repeat of the circumstances will be taken as a "deliberate" crash and dealt with accordingly.
Using inordinate amounts of system resources without first notifying IUL Administration (for example: deliberately running the system out of disk space or hogging CPU cycles/network bandwidth/etc.). Exceptions may be allowed at the discretion of IUL, possibly with the payment of a fee.
Trying to break any security features implemented by IUL Administration (for example: running any password cracking programs, viruses, Trojan horses, etc., as well as trying to circumvent file permissions - both on these systems, and on systems connected via any network connection).
Research into these types of activities are specifically prohibited, and it is recommended that users wishing to partake in them purchase their own systems.
Copying of Copyright software from these or connected systems without explicit license from the owners of such software.
Using the system as a base to send or causing to be passed through the system unsolicited commercial email or unsolicited bulk email (more commonly known as SPAM or UBE).
Using the system as a base for an attack of any type on other systems. This includes continued harassment of individuals by electronic mail and creating any mail or network commands with false or anonymous origination information. This is in keeping with our policy of enforcing user accountability for all traffic on the system.
Any activity which is prohibited by law in the Province of Alberta or by Federal law in Canada.
In addition, since this system is connected to computers in virtually every jurisdiction in the world, IUL will take action against any account holder using the system as a base to break the laws of another jurisdiction via a computer in that jurisdiction.
Any activity which contravenes the spirit of the Internet as a cooperative environment.
This last prohibition is of necessity vague since there is no one governing body or set of governing rules for the Internet. In essence, the prohibition covers any act to which anyone even indirectly affected by such act can say "This is not what I am paying my network connection provider for." This covers such acts as contravening "Acceptable Usage Policies", sending out 'broadcast' E-mail messages unsolicited, and/or trying to force your moral / ethical / religious / etc. standards on any other net user. In general, if the Customer's actions cause any reaction from others on the Internet to an extent that draws attention from IUL Administration, continued access via IUL facilities may be revoked.
If the Customer does not understand this last policy prohibition, then we recommend that the Customer should never send anything via Email or Usenet News, or use any facility other than direct interactive reading of information from anywhere on the Internet.
RESPONSE TO POLICY VIOLATIONS:
IUL's response, depending on the nature of the violation, will be any of:
- Denial of service for a specific period of time.
- Denial of service permanently.
- Provision of information to Police Authorities.
- Filing of complaints to Police Authorities
- Filing of Civil Suits.
- Any other action deemed necessary by IUL.
APPEALS:
Appeals to actions taken by IUL may be made in writing to Internet Unlimited Ltd. at the address shown below.
Internet Unlimited Ltd.
#400, 1400 - 1 Street SW
Calgary, AB T2R 0V8
CANADA