Regulations for Use of the Data Center

Usage of the Facilities

Usage of the Data Center’s facilities requires the possession of a valid permission of usage according to the access regulations of the Data Center. The Data Center’s facilities may only be used in a legally correct manner. We specifically point out that the following behaviors in particular are a punishable offense under the criminal code:

  1. Spying out passwords, spying out data (§202 a StGB),
  2. Unauthorized changing, deleting, or suppressing data or rendering data unusable (§303 a StGB),
  3. Computer sabotage (§303 b StGB) and computer fraud (§263 a StGB),
  4. Distribution of propaganda material of unconstitutional organizations (§86 StGB) or racist ideas (§131 StGB),
  5. Distribution and acquisition of documents with pornographic content (§184 par. 3 and par. 5 StGB),
  6. Acquisition or possession of documents with child pornography (§184 par. 5 StGB),
  7. Offences like insult and libel (§§ 185 ff StGB).

Next to these, charges of civil law, copyright or any other kind can emerge against the holder of rights of use.
The ZDV reserves the right to initiate criminal steps as well as civil claims (see 4: Obligations of the Holders of the Rights of Use).

Prohibitions

Holders of rights of use are obligated to

  1. not pass their personal access data (passwords, other processes) on to third parties, neither deliberately nor negligently.
  2. acknowledge the terms of a licence, shown online or on documentation, regarding software, data, and documents and to observe the terms and conditions; to neither copy or share nor use especially software, documentation, and data for other than the permitted purposes, especially not for commercial purposes, without explicit permission.
  3. coordinate plans of editing personal data with the system manager in advance. Obligations that arise from the regulations of the data privacy act remain unaffected.

Liability

Holders of rights of use are liable for:

  1. all actions carried out under their user ID, including actions by third parties if access was made possible by negligence that is.
  2. culpably caused damages to the Data Center’s facilities as well as to devices, data media or other equipment of the Data Center.
  3. culpably caused losses of or changes on third parties’ data.
  4. culpably caused interruption of operations to third parties if it caused any damages.
  5. damages due to violation of the legal regulation and the terms of this usage regulation.

Obligations of the Holders of Rights of Use

Holders of rights of use are prohibited to

  1. make interventions to the hardware installation,
  2. change the configuration of the operation systems or the network

without consent of the ZDV.

Special permission is required when connecting alien machines. Installing and using private software on the work stations of the Data Center is only permitted observing the regulations of licence right and if no changes are necessary or being made to the system properties.

Connecting USB flash drives is permitted within the above mentioned restrictions.

Usage of Equipment

Holders of rights of usage are required to make sure that equipment (work spaces, CPU capacity, disk storage space, interconnect capacitance, peripheral devices, and other equipment) is handled in a responsible and economically reasonable manner.

Equipment in Classrooms

Devices in the classrooms are primarily for education purposes and secondarily for independent work (including so called freies Üben (‘free practice’)). They are reserved for course participants during class periods marked on the time table. Other users are not permitted during these times.

Food and Drinks

Food and drinks are not permitted in those classrooms open to public use. Work spaces and other tables are to be cleared after use and books etc. are to be put back into the shelves. Please be considerate of other users during necessary conversations. Reserving devices is not permitted. Work spaces may only be left occupied for short breaks and have to be vacated otherwise.

Usage of Peripheral Equipment

When using peripheral devices, the following rules have to be obeyed:

  1. The staff is usually responsible for changing paper, ink, or toner.
  2. Please report any malfunctions to the hotline.
  3. Instructions of the Data Center’s staff as well as notifications on the boards must be followed.
  4. Fees can be set in separate regulations for use of the ZDV facilities.
  5. Additional or different regulations of usage can be set for certain systems if necessary.

Access and usage regulations of the ZDV, decided by the management on 7.21.98