Acceptable use policy
Acceptable use policy
1.0 Overview
An Acceptable Use Policy (AUP) lists the conditions for anyone owning equipment available for authorised & public access, & puts in place the rules & conditions for anyone using or transiting their network, equipment & services.
The AUP defines the behaviour the publisher deems acceptable for those using their resources & the sanctions that may be applied to anyone who misuses those resources.
2.0 Purpose
Any violation of this policy may be subject to civil or criminal action, & may be subject to prosecution under the Computer Misuse Act 1990.
3.0 Scope
The AUP applies to all SSP Limited customers connecting via Permanent connection, Hosted services or other connection methods. This also applies equally to any third party customer or any person accessing SSP services or services hosted by SSP or transiting the SSP network.
4.0 The Policy
4.1 The Services may not be used to send or receive any material which is offensive, abusive, indecent, obscene, or menacing; or in breach of confidence, copyright, privacy or any other rights, or to send or receive any material, including computer viruses or pornography, the sending or reception of which transgresses any laws of the United Kingdom, whether civil or criminal. Unauthorised use may be subject to civil or criminal action, & may be subject to prosecution under the Computer Misuse Act 1990. SSP reserves the right to make available any appropriate audit trails or logs to the proper authorities when legally required & properly requested to do so.
4.2 Accessing or attempting to access any of SSP’s equipment, either hosted by SSP or SSP customer premises equipment without the normal range of services provided is strictly prohibited. While SSP will continue to make every effort to protect accounts & email from unauthorised access, no guarantees are implied or will be given that accounts & mail are secure. Commonly referred to as “hacking or cracking” is strictly prohibited. This includes, but is not limited to, attempting to read or modify any system files or interact directly with the operating system or any action which has the express purpose of interfering with the normal running of any equipment on or connected to our network. The following actions are considered by SSP to be direct interference with our equipment & are prohibited. Specifically, but without limitation:
4.2.1 Forgery of addresses or other such data in IP packets or emails
4.2.2 Unauthorised access to the network management equipment of SSP or their customers
4.2.3 Mail bombing; mass mailing of unsolicited advertising material
4.2.4 The transmission of live video or live audio
4.2.5 The use of IP multicast without authorisation
4.2.6 Use of packet sniffers & other forms of electronic surveillance devices
4.2.7 Any Denial of Service Attack
4.2.8 Port Scans, Ping Scans, Ping Floods, SYN floods
4.2.9 Telnet to any of our systems
4.2.10 Attempts to guess or crack user names or passwords Accessing or attempting to access any account without authority
4.3 These are considered to be unacceptable practice & may result in SSP taking immediate action to suspend or cancel any account or accounts without notice. SSP may, at their sole discretion, report the incident to the Police & circulate such details about the offender or company to other authorities so as to enable them to impose such sanctions as they see deem appropriate.
4.4 Your account & passwords, unless specified to the contrary in your service contract, are for individual use only. It is expected to user names & passwords supplied by SSP will be kept secure. You must not pass them on to any other individual or group of people. Passwords must comply with the SSP Password Policy Document, including but not limited to: complexity requirements, & change intervals. You should be aware that you are responsible for the actions of anyone using your account & your liability under the law is not necessarily limited.
4.5 You are expected to make responsible use of system resources. Unless included in your service contract the running of any servers, including but not limited to: Web Servers, Game Servers, Mail Servers, FTP Servers or IRC Servers, is not allowed & will lead to immediate suspension of your account. We reserve the right to end all or any sessions which have been idle for a reasonable time. You may not run any processes which continue after you have logged off or during a terminated session, nor may you run excessive concurrent processes on our system.
4.6 The normal use of electronic mail is acceptable. Customers should be aware that the contents of any email message may not necessarily be private when it is transmitted across the Internet. Highly confidential or personal information should not be sent using email. While SSP will continue to make every effort to protect email from unauthorised access, no guarantees are implied or will be given that mail is secure.
4.7 SSP reserves the right to delete all mail from any mailbox residing on our system when the amount of disk space exceeds reasonable or as outlined in your service contract. Should the volume of mail threaten the proper functioning of SSP systems we reserve the right to delete all the mail & return any new messages to the sender without delay. SSP will make a reasonable effort to contact the customer if time permits but operational considerations will have priority. An Email account exists only as long as an account is held with SSP. In the event that SSP cancels an account due to infringement of Terms & Conditions, or breach of this AUP all mail stored on our systems will be automatically deleted after confirmed termination. SSP prohibits the use of private mailing lists run on SSP email systems unless written authority to the contrary is obtained.
4.7.1 Definition: SPAM/UCE/UBE Unsolicited Commercial Email (UCE)/Unsolicited Bulk Email (UBE) & posting of out of topic news articles or cross posting of news articles to numerous groups is often called SPAM. ISPs will have a policy against SPAM & it is considered to be highly disruptive to the individual user & corporate entity alike.
4.7.2 SSP SPAM/UCE Mail Policy – No SSP account may be used for generating or sending UCE/UBE. Any person or business entity using SSP resources for the transmission of UCE/UBE will have their account suspended with immediate effect & without prior warning. Any repeat occurrence may lead to cancellation of the account without notice or warning. Any costs incurred by SSP may be reclaimed from the account holder. SSP Mail Relays may not be used for sending UCE/UBE or for disguising the origin of any mail sent through the Internet. SSP will endeavour to respond to complaints about UCE/UBE/SPAM & any incidence should be reported to abuse@ssp-uk.com, complete with a copy of all mail headers.
4.8 Any violation of this policy may be subject to civil or criminal action, & may be subject to prosecution under the Computer Misuse Act 1990.
We reserve the right to add, delete, or modify any section of this policy at any time without notice.