Table of Contents:

I. GOALS

II. ILLEGAL USE

III. SYSTEM AND NETWORK SECURITY

IV. EMAIL

V. GENERAL RESOURCE USAGE

VI. PRIVACY

VII. COOPERATION WITH OTHER PROVIDERS

VIII. CONSEQUENCES OF VIOLATION

IX. MODIFICATION

I. GOALS

Shamash: The Jewish Network’s, Acceptable Use Policy, henceforth referred to as "Policy", is designed to help protect Shamash, Shamash's customers and the Internet community in general from irresponsible and illegal activities. The Policy has been formulated with the following goals in mind:

1. Ensure security, reliability privacy and protection of Shamash’s systems and network resources, and the networks and systems of others.
2. Avoid situations that may cause Shamash to incur civil liability.
3. Maintain the reputation of Shamash as a responsible provider.
4. Preserve the value of Internet resources as a conduit for free expression.
5. Encourage the responsible use of net resources, discouraging practices in which degrade the usability of network resources and thus the value of Internet services.
6. Preserve the privacy and security of individual users.

The Policy defines the actions which Shamash considers to be abusive, and thus, strictly prohibited. The examples named in this policy are non-exclusive, and are provided solely for guidance to Shamash customers. Generally, conduct that violates law, regulation, or the accepted norms of the Internet community, whether or not expressly mentioned in this Policy, is prohibited. Shamash reserves the right at all times to prohibit activities that damage its reputation and goodwill. If you are unsure whether any contemplated use or action is permitted, please send mail to abuse@shamash.org and we will assist you.

II. ILLEGAL USE

The Shamash system may be used only for lawful purposes. Transmission, distribution or storage of any material in violation of any applicable law or regulation, as determined at Shamash's sole discretion, is prohibited.

1. This includes, without limitation, material protected by copyright, trademark, trade secret or other intellectual property right used without proper authorization. This prohibition includes publishing a private e-mail message to third parties, by any means, without the express prior consent of the author. Shamash considers its mailing lists to be private e-mail messages, and thus are protected by the copyright laws.
2. This includes material that is obscene, defamatory, abusive, libelous, or hateful or which constitutes an illegal threat, violates export control laws, encourages conduct that would constitute a criminal offense, gives rise to civil liability, or otherwise violate any local, state, national, or common law.

III. SYSTEM AND NETWORK SECURITY

Violations of system or network security are prohibited, and may result in criminal and civil liability. Examples of system or network security violations include, without limitation, the following:

1. Unauthorized access to or use of data, systems or networks, including any attempt to probe, scan or test the vulnerability of a system or network or to breach security or authentication measures without express authorization of the owner of the system or network.
2. Activities which adversely affect the ability of other people or systems to use Shamash services or the Internet is prohibited.
3. Monitoring of data or traffic on any network or system without express authorization of the owner of the system or network.
4. Interference with service to any user, host or network including, without limitation, mailbombing, flooding, deliberate attempts to overload a system, including denial of service and broadcast attacks.
5. Privacy violations: Attempts, whether successful or not, to gain access to any computer system, or customer's data, without consent is prohibited.

IV. EMAIL

Electronic mail abuse is strictly prohibited, including but not limited to the following:

1. Unsolicited Commercial E-mail, Unsolicited Bulk E-mail, Spam, Mailbombing: Using automation of any kind to send substantially similar or duplicative, unsolicited e-mail messages, including, without limitation, commercial advertising and informational announcements, or collecting the responses from unsolicited e-mail or abusive USENET postings, is strictly prohibited.
2. Harassment: Sending threatening or harassing e-mail, whether through language, frequency, or size of messages, is prohibited.
3. Violations of Mailing List Policies: Sending mail to any mailing list which violates that mailing list’s policies is prohibited. Shamash reserves the right to make the determination whether a given message violates the mailing list policies’. In most cases Shamash will defer to the judgment of the mailing list owner or moderator. Commercial messages that are appropriate under the policies of a mailing list, or that are expressly solicited by the list owner, are permitted. Contact the listowner before sending a message of questionable appropriateness to a list.
4. Modifying in any way, or attempting to modify, addresses of any mailing list without explicit positive consent of the addressee or list owner is prohibited.
5. Any distribution of e-mail addresses of Shamash mailing list subscribers, list owners, or account holders, for any purpose, commercial or non-commercial, is prohibited.
6. Forging e-mail header information is prohibited. Falsifying addressing information or otherwise modifying headers to conceal the sender's or recipient's identity, for the purpose of circumventing this Policy, is prohibited. This provision is not intended to disallow the use of aliases or anonymous re-mailers for any legitimate purpose.
7. Subscribing other individuals to mailing lists against their will is prohibited in all cases. All Shamash lists are 100% opt-in. Subscribers must want to join a list before they are added to it.
8. Forwarding or otherwise propagating chain letters, Internet urban legends, hoaxes, schemes, viruses, or Trojan horses, whether or not the recipient wishes to receive such mailings, is prohibited.

V. GENERAL RESOURCE USAGE

1. The customer is responsible for keeping his/her billing data with Shamash up-to-date and accurate. Furnishing false data to Shamash, through any media, including fraudulent use of credit card numbers, is grounds for immediate termination, and may subject the offender to civil or criminal liability.
2. Password security is the responsibility of the individual user. A good password should be a minimum of six characters long, contain at least one number or symbol, and not be based on any dictionary word or common name.
3. The password for an account will be given to the authorized user for that account and should not be shared with other users. If the account is a role account, then the authorized user for that role account may share the password with users who fill the role. When a role user is relieved of his/her role, the authorized user for the role account should change the password for that account.
4. Shamash may specify limits on bandwidth and disk utilization, and use in excess of those limits is not permitted. The total number of bytes transferred from an account’s Web space determines bandwidth utilization. The total number of bytes required to store an account’s Web, FTP, and Mail data determines disk utilization. In the event Shamash determines that an account is exceeding the bandwidth or disk utilization, Shamash may take action to rectify the situation.
5. Shamash accounts operate on shared resources. Account owners are prohibited from excessive consumption of resources, including CPU time, memory, and session time. The use of resource-intensive programs, which negatively impact other system users, or the performance of Shamash systems or networks, is prohibited. Shamash staff may take action to limit or terminate such programs.
6. The resale of Shamash products and services is not permitted, unless specifically permitted and documented in a written agreement.

VI. PRIVACY

1. It may be necessary for Shamash staff to examine system accounting logs and other records to resolve system problems. Shamash reserves the right to access an account's mailbox or data files to resolve system problems or mail system errors.
2. Shamash makes no guarantee and assumes no liability for the security of any data on any server including "secure servers."
3. Our customers are reminded that no computer system should be considered safe from intrusion. E-mail may pass through many computer systems, and should not be considered a secure means of communication unless encrypted. Even then, information is only as secure as the encryption method.

VII. COOPERATION WITH OTHER PROVIDERS

Using Shamash's facilities to engage in activities that violate the Acceptable Use Policy of any other network access provider is prohibited, including but not limited to:

1. Sending unsolicited commercial e-mail through Shamash's facilities to the subscribers of any Internet or online service that does not allow such mail.
2. Using another site's mail server to relay mail without the express permission of the site.
3. Using a Shamash account or network connection to collect replies to messages sent from another provider which violate these rules or those of that provider
4. Using an account at another provider to promote a Shamash hosted web site or mailing list in an abusive manner, as defined by this Policy or the Acceptable Use Policy of that provider, is prohibited.

VIII. CONSEQUENCES OF VIOLATION

1. Violation of this Policy by a Shamash customer, client, or subscriber may result in temporary suspension of service, permanent termination of service, or any other action which Shamash deems appropriate (e.g. address filtering) at Shamash's sole discretion, without notice. Our preferred course of action will be to advise the account owner, list owner, or list subscriber of the inappropriate behavior and allow corrective action as necessary. Flagrant or repeated violations of the Policy are viewed in a very different light than minor infractions.
2. Shamash may bill the responsible party for any resulting support charges incurred due to a violation of this Policy.
3. Shamash does not issue service credits for any outages incurred through service disablement resulting from Policy violations. In the event of service suspension as a result of any prohibited activities by a client, the service may be subject to reactivation charges and/or deposit requirements to be determined by Shamash.
4. Shamash will, at our discretion, initiate contact with the appropriate legal authorities in investigating claims of illegal activity. Shamash will cooperate completely with all legal authorities. Shamash reserves the right to remove illegal material from its servers.

IX. MODIFICATION

1. Shamash reserves the right to add, delete, or modify any provision of this Policy at any time without notice. Please consult this document on-line <http://www.shamash.org/help/aup.shtml> periodically to ensure you have a copy of the latest version.
2. Please send reports of any activity in violation of this Policy to: abuse@shamash.org

  Shamash is grateful to the following organizations whose Accepatable Use Policies we used to develop this document:

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Web Author: abuse@shamash.org
Last modified: Thursday, 02-Oct-2003 13:07:51 EDT

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