Acceptable Use Policy

Updated October 28, 2021

Background

This Acceptable Use Policy (hereafter AUP) defines the responsibilities of CyVerse account holders (“Users”) with respect to proper and acceptable use of its resources. CyVerse and its resources are intended to support open science research in the life sciences. Other uses of CyVerse resources, including use by corporate users or international collaborators, may be allowed at CyVerse's sole discretion.

Compliance

All Users are responsible for complying with this AUP and for violations thereof attributable to them. This AUP does not obligate CyVerse to monitor, review, or police the data and content residing on its servers, or create any obligation or duty to any party that is not a User. Unless and until notified, CyVerse is not likely to be aware of any violations of this AUP or any violations of the law; however, CyVerse reserves the right to monitor and investigate usage and content from time to time to operate CyVerse services, to identify violations of this AUP, and/or to protect CyVerse resources and our User community. CYVERSE EXPRESSLY DISCLAIMS ANY LIABILITY FOR THE CONTENT AND DATA TRANSMITTED THROUGH OR INTERMEDIATELY, TEMPORARILY, OR PERMANENTLY STORED ON ANY SERVER OR VIRTUAL MACHINE AND FOR THE ACTIONS OR OMISSIONS OF USERS.

This AUP:

  • Applies to all Users, including third-party Users, of CyVerse's resources, services, and products, including but not limited to the tools and services within the Discovery Environment/VICE, Atmosphere, BisQue, Taxonomic Name Resolution Service, Data Store, Data Commons, DNA Subway, CyVerse User Portal, etc., and any standalone products and services.
  • Is designed to protect and regulate CyVerse's user community, its website, products, services, resources, and infrastructure. It is incorporated by reference into CyVerse's Service Level Agreement(s) and Security and Privacy Policy.
  • Is not intended to impose restrictions that are contrary to the collaboration goals of CyVerse.
  • Is not intended to be an exhaustive listing of every and all possible forms of acceptable and unacceptable uses​.

User Security Obligation

Users must use reasonable care to ensure the security of their account, uploads, images, virtual machine (VM), etc. A User is solely responsible for any intrusions into, or security breaches of, any of their VMs, except as otherwise covered by a specifically designated security administration or firewall security service package. CyVerse reserves the right to disconnect, without notice, any Users or any hardware objects on CyVerse resources as a result of a security compromise.

Prohibited Content

Users shall not post, transmit, or store data or content on or through CyVerse servers which in CyVerse's sole determination, constitutes a violation of any federal, state, local, or international law, regulation, ordinance, court order or other legal process. Prohibited content includes, without limitation, content or code that:

  • Facilitates any violation of this AUP
  • Includes 'harvested' addresses or information
  • Includes phishing websites or spamvertising sites
  • Includes material believed by CyVerse to constitute pornography, pirated software, hackers' programs or archives, Warez sites, IRC bots, MP3 files, spyware of any sort, Spam software of any sort, etc.

All CyVerse hosting services, virtual or otherwise, may only be used for lawful purposes.

Abuse and Unacceptable Uses

Users are prohibited from engaging in any activities that CyVerse determines, in its sole and absolute discretion, to constitute abuse or unacceptable uses, including but not limited to:

  • Introducing or executing malicious content or programs into CyVerse servers or virtual machines, such as viruses, worms, Trojan horses, and key loggers.
  • Causing or initiating security breaches or disruptions of system communications and/or connectivity, including port scans, flood pings, email bombing, packet spoofing, IP spoofing, and forged routing information.
  • Executing any form of system activity that will intercept data not intended for the User's account or VM.
  • Evading or circumventing User authentication or security of any host, network, or account, including cracking, brute-force, or dictionary attacks.
  • Interfering with or denying service to any User, host, or network other than the User's host, such as a denial of service attack or distributed denial of service attack.
  • Conduct designed to avoid restrictions or limits access to specific services, hosts, or networks, including the forging of packet headers or other identification information.
  • Soliciting the performance of any illegal activity, even if the activity is not performed.
  • Using any program, or sending messages of any kind, designed to interfere with or disable a User's terminal session.
  • Revealing your account password to others or allowing use of your account by others.
  • Using CyVerse's computing resources to actively engage in procuring or transmitting material that is in violation of sexual harassment or hostile workplace laws in the User's local jurisdiction.
  • Engaging in activities, whether lawful or unlawful, that CyVerse determines to be harmful to its Users, User community, operations, reputation, community goodwill, or community relations.
  • Running applications or services to mine cryptocurrency and/or that use block-chain technology for personal gain. Exceptions must be requested in advance and will be approved at CyVerse's discretion. Violations of this policy will result in User access to CyVerse resources being terminated and User accounts being disabled.

Intellectual Property Infringement

Users may not transmit, distribute, download, copy, cache, host, or store on a CyVerse VM or server any information, data, material, or work that infringes the intellectual property rights of others or violates any trade secret right of any other person/User. CyVerse has the right to disable access to, or remove, infringing content to the extent required by law or regulation, and to suspend permanently or terminate access to Atmosphere, the CyVerse Discovery Environment-Visual Interactive Computing Environment, or any CyVerse cyberinfrastructure of any User engaging in such infringement.

Code of Conduct

CyVerse resources are to be used appropriately for research and education. Do not use CyVerse for personal financial gains including mining of cryptocurrencies. All Users are expected to conduct themselves and their work and activities on CyVerse in a manner that is respectful of other users, collaborators, and CyVerse staff. This includes, but is not limited to:

  • using appropriate and polite written and verbal language at all times,
  • ensuring your usage of CyVerse does not disturb, disrupt, or preclude any other user's legitimate activities on the system (e.g., limit your concurrent connections to the Data Store to 5 or fewer), and
  • exercising caution to not reveal your or another's personal information that could be the cause for identity theft or harassment. 

Additional expectations of participant conduct for in-person and virtual events may be specified on an event-by-event basis.

Users subjected or witness to violation(s) of this Code of Conduct should report the violation(s) as soon as possible to info@cyverse.org with pertinent details (e.g., user(s) involved, date, context, nature of the violation(s), etc.) and supported with screenshots if possible. Unless and until notified, CyVerse may not likely be aware of any violations of this Code of Conduct; however, CyVerse reserves the right to monitor and investigate any and all reports of Code of Conduct violations to identify non-compliant users and take suitable action when warranted in order to protect our User community and CyVerse resources.

Violations of this AUP

CyVerse reserves the right to deactivate a User's account(s) if any or all portions of this AUP are being violated in any way, in CyVerse's sole and absolute discretion.

Indemnification

User agrees to indemnify and hold harmless CyVerse and its staff, directors, agents, and collaborators from and against any claims, losses, judgments, damages, costs, and expenses incurred by any of the foregoing parties due to or resulting from:

  • User's publication of unacceptable content or materials stored or used on CyVerse resources.
  • User's breach or violation of any covenant contained in this policy, or resulting from their use of CyVerse's services.

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