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Virtual Campus Graz


Acceptable Use Policy

§1 Purpose of Virtual Campus Graz (VCG)

VCG is a joint project of the Graz Student Dormitories, the Graz University of Technology and the responsible Federal Ministry for the purpose of providing the best possible connection of the student dormitories to the universities, to the ACOnet and to the Internet.
The technical operator of VCG is the department "Networkinfrastructure" of ZID of Graz University of Technology (hereinafter referred to as "VCG operator").

§2 Participation in VCG

VCG provides a backbone service to connect the participating student dormitories to the ACOnet. Each dormitory operator participating in VCG is responsible for the operation of the local area network, the connection to the ACOnet POP, and for the users in the dormitory. Specifically, each participating student dorm is responsible for compliance with this VCG AUP and the ACOnet AUP (see http://www.aco.net/aconet-aup.pdf).
Each participating student dorm shall issue its own local rules of operation and use and shall entrust at least one suitable person from its area (residents, administration) with the function of a technical contact point (hereinafter referred to as "dorm administrator").
The tasks of this dorm administrator are in particular:
  • The administration of the user accounts in the central database (this VCG-AUP and the section "Information for Residents" on http://www.vc-graz.ac.at/ must be demonstrably brought to the attention of the user when a user account is granted).
  • Verifying the accuracy of the data to be entered there (e.g., university affiliation, matriculation number, email address, etc.).
  • Monitoring compliance with the dormitory's AUP.
  • Providing first level support to dorm residents.
The dorm administrator has no legal or service relationship with the VCG operator; compensation for the expenses incurred by the dorm administrator in the course of his duties as defined above shall be defined internally.

§3 Use of VCG

The services of VCG (and ACOnet) are provided to the participating student residences or their residents (students, pupils and apprentices) solely for teaching and research purposes, whereby there is no entitlement to access the services of VCG.
If a residence has another provider in addition to VCG (e.g., for resident groups other than those listed), then it must be determined per residence which provider serves the residence.

Use of most services requires an account in the central VCG database, which is created and maintained by the dorm administrator. Disclosure of this personal account data (username, password) is not permitted and may result in a longer suspension or revocation of the account.
After login in with the account data, the user is dynamically assigned an IP address from the DNS range *.vc-graz.ac.at. If a static IP address is required for server operation, this must be requested from the VCG operator via the dorm administrator with justification.

The services of VCG can be limited by the VCG operator (if it seems necessary for the smooth operation and a fair distribution of the available resources) at any time both in the bandwidth, in the data volume and in temporal use. In case of a change of these regulations the dorm administrators will be informed by mail and the users via the webpage http://www.vc-graz.ac.at/news.shtml and the newsgroup vc-graz.

§4 Inadmissible Use of VCG

Inadmissible is the deliberate use of VCG services for the transmission, distribution or storage of data, which
  • violates existing laws or endangers public order or morality,
  • violates protective rights of others (e.g. data protection, copyright),
  • obstructs, harasses or frightens other network users (e.g. excessive data traffic, spam)
  • contains harmful components (e.g. viruses, Trojans)
  • serves to obtain unauthorized access (e.g. port scans, password scans, exploitation of system vulnerabilities),
  • intends to impair network operation (e.g. deliberately causing a system crash, DoS attacks).
Furthermore, use for commercial or industrial purposes is not permitted. Exceptions (e.g. for dorm administration) require the consent of the VCG operator.

§5 Measures in Case of Violations

In case of violations of this VCG-AUP or the ACOnet-AUP, the student residences participating in VCG are required to immediately stop the misuse and to inform the VCG operator to the extent necessary.
The inadmissible uses explicitly mentioned in §4 lead to a blocking of the account in the extent of 2n weeks, where n stands for the number of already occurred blocks in the last 18 months.
Passing on a VCG account will result in a blocking of at least 3 months, in case of repetition the account can also be deactivated completely.

In particularly serious cases, where the unauthorized use constitutes a violation of applicable law, civil and/or criminal proceedings may be initiated.

Should it be necessary to exclude an entire dormitory from the use of the offered services or parts thereof in order to maintain or restore an orderly operation of the VCG services, the VCG operator is entitled to take appropriate measures and to inform the responsible dormitory administrator.

§6 Final Provisions

These VCG-AUP are subject to change without notice. The currently valid version of the VCG-AUP is published at http://www.vc-graz.ac.at/aup.shtml. Reports about violations of the VCG-AUP are to be sent to abuse@vc-graz.ac.at.