This document describes the network services that Morehouse provides, the services which are prohibited, and the trends and themes by which future or unspecified network situations will be judged. It does constitute Morehouse InfoTech policy; it is subject to change without notice.
Questions and comments should be directed to the HelpDesk.
This version was published 1jo4b
Here's what's covered in this document:
Morehouse College provides ethernet connections to most points on campus, including essentially all faculty and staff offices and dorm rooms. These connections allow access to the Morehouse data networks and servers as well as to the Internet.
In general we try to maintain a stance of "whatever is not denied is allowed", in the spirit of academic openness, but security and abuse concerns are changing that view: it may not last forever.
Currently, the client portion of the network is divided into two parts: students and faculty/staff. Each client section consists of a great many diverse computers all acting as network clients and all sitting behind firewalls which perform many-to-one NAT, preventing inbound connections from outside networks (including other Morehouse networks). Most client connections are permitted. Service allocations are different for the faculty/staff and students.
Morehouse's Information Technologies (IT) department runs the data network. Its decisions about usage, configuration, and poicy are binding, pending review by other Morehouse authorities.
On-campus servers are accessible to the faculty/staff roughly as follows:
Server Via facstaff http, https, ftp, pop3, smtp, dns students http, https, pop3, smtp, dns www http, https, ftp, sftp banner database various Oracle TCP/IP protocols banner web https (port 4000) banner/tigernet http, https
The students have similar access, but cannot access the Banner forms or database systems.
Off-campus services that we allow (with a smile) are web access and justified (academically-relevant) FTP access. Email is fair game, but abuse of the systems (by sending or receiving huge files, by spamming, etc.) is not allowed. Games and other amusements are permitted as long as they do not interfere with the normal academic operations of the network and do not constitute or involve security risks or violations of the law.
In general, we do not support anything non-academic. People who find themselves unable to access services which have no relevance to the educational process normally are on their own. However, if they feel their cause is worthy enough, they can contact the HelpDesk and request assistance (or special network changes).
All services which remain within a network (within the dorms, within the faculty areas) are policed and regulated with less vigor than those which cross network boundaries. In the student network, anything that does not hamper the proper functioning of the network and does not break any Morehouse rules or any laws is permitted.
Games, between-student file sharing, etc., all are fine as long as they also are legal. On the faculty side, the same rules apply, but care must be taken not to violate the College's computing use policies (published elsewhere), which are fairly strict about the use of Morehouse-owned computing resources. Faculty and staff are more likely to be limited to the academic straight-and-narrow than are students.
None of the intra-network functions listed in the previous paragraph are supported; they are merely tolerated.
Instant messaging services are not supported, but are tolerated.
No client system (faculty, staff, or student computer) is allowed to provide Internet or other network services to systems outside its home network, nor may a client provide services such as DHCP to its own network. Further, nothing illegal is allowed. Nothing that consumes too much network bandwidth is allowed, the definition of "too much" to be determined by IT network staff, possibly on a case-by-case basis.
We usually try to block things which we do not permit, but that is not always possible. Our failure to block a disallowed service does NOT constitute permission to use that service.
Connection denials are used to limit services that really have no business on the campus network at all. The main body of these services consists of file sharing applications, most of which are used primarily to distribute illegal and/or huge material. To the extent that it's possible, peer-to-peer sharing applications, such as Gnutella and Kazaa, are blocked. Should the technological blocks be insufficient to prevent it entirely, users must employ these protocols only occasionally and for legal purposes.
Those considering the use of a "NAT router" or similar home-type router
gizmo must make sure they can prevent such a device from serving DHCP to
the network into which it is plugged. We block DHCP at some intelligent
network devices, but those who serve DHCP are hunted down nevertheless.
The flavor of these guidelines is this: be nice to the network so that it can be used for academic purposes, and we'll be nice back and do our best not to deny entertainment. We know the network is fun--we play on it ourselves--but that cannot be allowed to interfere with the business and academic operations of the College. Morehouse IT reserves the right to limit or modify the use of the network at its discretion without prior notice.
Questions, comments, etc., to the HelpDesk.