The Rules of the Internet

        By Dr. Philip Baczewski, Assistant Director of Academic Computing (baczewski@unt.edu)

        This is an edited version of an article that appeared in the March/April 1995 issue of Benchmarks (Vol. 16, No. 2, pg. 14).

        Many of us have come to rely on Wide Area Networks to support various aspects of our scholarship. The use of BITNET and NSFNET, i.e. the Internet, are now taken for granted by many at colleges and universities. Periodically, however, it is helpful to review the usage guidelines of these networks so that these resources that we take so for granted are not intentionally or unintentionally subjected to abuses of the privilege of access. At UNT it is also University policy that those accessing Wide Area Networks shall abide by the policies of those networks.1 It is very important, then, that if you use the Internet, you read and maintain a handy copy of their policies.

        We last published the CREN usage guidelines in the March/April 1995 issue of Benchmarks. They are repeated below to familiarize you with them or refresh your memory of them. Also included below are the NSFNET usage guidelines. Although UNT is no longer a member of CREN, we still access BITNET sites on the Internet. Similarly, although NSFNET may be officially "dead" (see Benchmarks, Vol. 16, No. 2), it's guidelines are still considered to be good "rules of the road" for the Information Superhighway.

        Corporation for Research and Educational Networking Acceptable Use Policy2

        CREN networks are for the use of persons legitimately affiliated with CREN Member or Affiliate organizations, to facilitate the exchange of information consistent with the academic, educational and research purposes of its members. All individuals affiliated with CREN Member or Affiliate organizations are responsible for seeing that their communities are aware of these guidelines, and that the guidelines are followed, both in letter and in spirit.

        CREN networks are, at the discretion of the institutions involved, open to use by students enrolled at participating CREN Member or Affiliate educational institutions.

        Use of CREN networks shall:

        • Be consistent with the purposes and goals of the networks.
        • Avoid interfering with the work of other users of the networks.
        • Avoid disrupting the network host systems (nodes).
        • Avoid disrupting network services.

        Acceptable Use of the Networks

        The following examples may help users of the networks apply these principles in particular cases.

        • Messages that are likely to result in the loss of recipients' work or systems are prohibited.
        • CREN networks are not to be used for commercial purposes, such as marketing, reselling bandwidth, or business transactions between commercial organizations.
        • Advertising is forbidden. Discussion of a product's relative advantages and disadvantages by users of the product is encouraged. Vendors may respond to questions about their products as long as the responses are not in the nature of advertising.
        • CREN networks may be used for the provision of services which support the needs and purposes of the CREN networks, and for which a charge is made, if the network is an optional mechanism for provision of this service for which no additional charge is made, and as long as the use of the service is consistent with the bandwidth of the network and the forwarding hosts. Providers of such information may be non-profit or for-profit organizations.
        • Any communication which violates applicable laws and regulations is not allowed.**

        Users of CREN networks are expected to be responsible in their use:

        • "Chain letters," "broadcasting" messages to lists or individuals,and other types of use which would cause congestion of the networks or otherwise interfere with the work of others are not allowed.
        • BITNET files will be limited to sizes determined and reviewed periodically. (Note: The current limit is 300,000 bytes per file transmitted.)

        CREN Members or Affiliates are expected to take reasonable measures (given the constraints of technology and management) to ensure that traffic using gateways between CREN networks and other networks conforms to these guidelines.

        Final authority for CREN acceptable use policies lies with the CREN Board. It is the responsibility of member representatives to contact the CREN Board, in writing, regarding questions of interpretation. Until such issues are resolved, questionable use should be considered "not acceptable."

        The NSFNET Acceptable Use Policy3

        The purpose of NSFNET is to support research and education in and among academic institutions in the U.S. by providing access to unique resources and the opportunity for collaborative work.

        This statement represents a guide to the acceptable use of the NSFNET backbone. It is only intended to address the issue of use of the backbone. It is expected that the various middle level networks will formulate their own use policies for traffic that will not traverse the backbone.

        1. All use must be consistent with the purpose of NSFNET.
        2. The intent of the use policy is to make clear certain cases which are consistent with the purposes of NSFNET, not to exhaustively enumerate all such possible uses.
        3. The NSF NSFNET Project Office many at any time make determinations that particular uses are or are not consistent with the purposes of NSFNET. Such determinations will be reported to the NSFNET Policy Advisory Committee and to the user community.
        4. If a use is consistent with the purposes of NSFNET, then activities in direct support of that use will be considered consistent with the purposes of NSFNET. For example, administrative communications for the support infrastructure needed for research and instruction are acceptable.
          5. Use in support of research or instruction at not-for-profit institutions of research or instruction in the United States is acceptable.
        5. Use for a project which is part of or supports a research or instruction activity for a not-for-profit institution of research or instruction in the United States is acceptable, even if any or all parties to the use are located or employed elsewhere. For example, communications directly between indurstrial affiliates engaged in support of a project for such an institution is acceptable.
        6. Use for commercial activities by for-profit institutions is generally not acceptable unless it can be justified under (4) above. These should be reviewed on a case-by-case basis by the NSF Project Office.
        7. Use for research or instruction at for-profit institutions may or may not be consistent with the purposes of NSFNET, and will be reviewed by the NSF Project Office on a case-by-case basis.

        1 University Of North Texas Policy Manual, Classification 3.6, Section 4.8.d.

        2 The following is available from CREN's Web server (http://www.cren.net/) under CREN, and from info.cren.net via ftp as (/cren/terms) or via Gopher. For more information contact the Corporation for Research and Educational Networking, Suite 600, 1112 Sixteenth Street, NW, Washington, DC 20036 Phone: (202) 872-4200.

        3 This NSFNET Acceptable Use Policy statement is available from the Coalition for Networked Information Information Policies Web page (http://www.cni.org/docs/infopols/www/preliminaries.html). Many other policies, position statements, principles, statutes and such are also available from that page.

        ** In particular, messages and data sent to destinations outside the U.S. must satisfy the Department of Commerce regulations (either be within the GTDA guidelines for information which may be generally transmitted or have the required license).

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